


in your eyes

by littlelamplight



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/F, kara is a literal angel, mentions of torture, third person multiple viewpoints
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 11:14:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6608554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlelamplight/pseuds/littlelamplight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They are not actually angels, but honestly, they might as well be. </p><p>In which the Kryptonains have wings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> not related to my other Supergirl fic

It is safe to say that the lives of everyone in National City changed the day Supergirl revealed herself to the world. 

 

It turned out that for Cat Grant, that change would be far more personal.

 

Supergirl becomes a friend. And with that friendship comes a feeling of intense attraction and affection, and its complicated by puzzlement and uncertainty. 

 

In short, Cat is confused, and she detests the feeling. She is unsure, and yet she has never been so certain of anything in a long time, and the paradoxical feeling has a headache brewing at her temples. 

 

She is certain that Kara, her assistant with a too sunny smile and a wisdom in her eyes that her glasses do not hide, is Supergirl. Everything fits. The little things that added up into glaringly obvious moments, as if the young woman was walking around with a sign hanging from her neck that screamed the truth, and Cat was the only one who could see it. 

 

But there is a simple thing standing in her way of being unshakeably certain in her deduction, and that is the fact that Kara does not have wings. 

 

Supergirl does. 

 

They are beautiful, those wings, and sometimes, when her frustrations feel like they’re going to boil over and she’s had probably a few too many drinks, Cat catches herself thinking that its not fair, really, that this beautiful, heroic woman with a heart of gold dropped out of the sky, and that she had to have wings. The feathers of her wings are pure, startling white, and when the sun hits them, they are blinding. 

 

The first time Cat calls Supergirl an angel, it is a complete mistake, and she’s probably had enough to drink to be verging on drunk. She’s still at work, the floor beyond her office shadowed in darkness, and she doesn’t want to go home because her mother is staying with her, and the longer she stays the more she’ll have to explain, and now that she’s tipsy enough that her mother will notice (her mother would notice if she had one, and she’d disapprove), and Supergirl is just suddenly there. 

 

Cat starts ranting. She rants about Maxwell Lord and how hard he’s trying to bring Supergirl down, and the young woman listens with her head slightly tilted, concern creasing her brow, and suddenly Cat hears herself saying, ‘I named you. You are mine. My angel. And I will not have him slander your image like this’. 

 

She does not say that Supergirl is her friend, even if its true, because its something that doesn’t need to be said, something that she doesn’t want to say in the same sentence as that man’s name. Neither of them are exactly sure when that happened, but it did, and sometimes it feels like its developing into something more. 

 

Supergirl ( _Kara, Kara, Kara_ , her mind screams, and she wonders if that voice will always be there until she can be certain either way) looks startled, and even in the dim light, the faint blush that colours her lovely skin is easy to see. ‘I’m not… you now I’m not actually an angel, right? I’m an alien. I just happen to have wings’. 

 

Cat flicks her wrist in a dismissive gesture, and Supergirl blinks. ‘Angel, alien, its all the same, really. What’s important, what really matters, is how people see you. And people see this’, she gestures, needlessly, at Supergirl's golden hair, at the expanse of her wings that seem tinged silver in the moonlight, ‘and they see an angel’. 

 

Supergirl shifts, and a ripple seems to run down the length of her wings, as if a breeze is stirring her feathers. Cat tries not to let herself be distracted by the motion. Whenever she is around Supergirl, an intense desire to run her hands through those feathers surges up within her, as if there is part of her that wants nothing more in the world than to touch the young woman’s wings. The desire, the urge, has only grown as their relationship developed into this (trust, friendship, a tentative step towards something more), but she has never acted on it. She never will, unless granted permission. 

 

Even like this, when she will have trouble walking straight once she tries, she won’t. 

 

There is a trait that both Kara and Supergirl have, in their body language, that only makes Cat more certain (and more irritatingly confused) about their identity. Sometimes, Supergirl twitches her shoulders, and her wings press in close to her body, as if she’s shaking off a phantom touch, like she can feel Cat’s desire. Kara does the same thing, a twitch in her shoulders, a slight shuffle of her feet that inevitably moves her away from whoever she is talking to, like she’s trying to protect wings that are not there and it is so _frustrating,_ because everything fits except for the glaring problem that Kara doesn’t have wings. 

 

Supergirl sighs, and shakes her head. ‘And what do they say about the other Kryptonians? The escapees from Fort Rozz? We’re not angels, Cat. We have our faults, some… more than others’. The corner of her mouth turns down, and a veil seems to fall over her eyes. She looks sad and lonely, then, standing on Cat’s balcony in a world that is not her own, and something in Cat’s heart _aches_. ‘My planet perished because my people used up its core’. 

 

Cat blinks. Once, she had to push to get any information from the young woman. She hesitates. She wants to find some way of wiping that expression from Supergirl’s face. ‘Perhaps that reassures them’, she says slowly. ‘Your faults. It humanises you’. 

 

Supergirl tilts her head. She stares at her for a long moment, perhaps trying to decide whether she point out how that statement contradicts the first. Then she says, ‘what do you see?'

 

Cat blinks. She tells herself that she only feels thrown because of how much she’s had to drink. ‘You know what I see, Supergirl’. She raises her glass in a toast. ‘You bring us hope’. 

 

She shifts her feet, perhaps to move forward, or back, she’s not really sure, but she stumbles, and Supergirl catches her elbow in order to steady her. She frowns. ‘Do you want me to take you home, Cat?’

 

She shakes her head. ‘No, thank you, Supergirl’. 

 

‘Company, then?’

 

Cat shrugs. ‘If you like’. 

 

They move to sit, and silence falls between them, and Supergirl’s hand stays on her elbow. 

 

Cat hears herself saying, ‘tell me about your wings’.

 

Supergirl blinks, and chuckles softly. ‘What do you want to know?’

 

 _Everything,_ she wants to say. ‘Anything’. She pauses. ‘Why are they different colours?’

 

Supergirl takes a deep breath, and begins, ‘everyones wings are were different. The explanations for why are… complicated. There are similarities between wings, but they’re all unique to the individual’. She pauses, and when she spas again, there is a tightness in her voice. ‘My mother had a twin. Aunt Astra. She… she’s gone, too’.

 

Cat wants to reach out and comfort the woman, but she doesn’t. She shifts slightly closer to her, instead. Supergirl takes a deep breath, and goes on, ‘they were identical. But even when… even without seeing their wings, I could tell them apart’.

 

‘Their wings were different?’ Cat asks, mainly in an attempt to distract the young woman. She didn’t intend to make her relive clearly painful memories. 

 

‘My mother had black wings. Black like… like the night sky when there are no stars. Like the absence of light. They were beautiful, but…’ she shakes her head. ‘They had a name for her. Like they call you the Queen of Media, because of the position and power you hold. They called her the -’ and here Supergirl breaks off into what must be the krytponian language.  

 

Cat blinks, a shiver running like a gentle breeze running over her skin at the foreign syllables. ‘What?’

 

Supergirl laughs. ‘I think the most accurate translation would be… the Angel of Death’. 

 

‘The Angel of Death?’ Cat is rather startled. From what the young woman has told her about her mother, the name doesn’t seem to fit at all. ‘Did she kill people for a living?’

 

Supergirl shakes her head, a very faint smile curving her lips. ‘No. But she was a judge on Krypton. She sentenced criminals to Fort Rozz, and once they went in, they never came out. Judge, jury, executioner, you might say’.

 

‘What was so bad about Fort Rozz?’

 

Supergirl sighs. ‘They… it wasn’t just our people who were sentenced there, but when it was… they had their wings taken from them. Most of our people considered that a fate worse than death’.

 

Cat feels a surge of horror bubble up in her chest. She tries to imagine Supergirl without her wings (not like Kara, because she knows that somehow, they are still there), with them torn from her shoulders, and shivers. ‘Thats…'

 

‘Yeah. There was a no tolerance policy on our planet. I didn’t know why at the time, but now… our planet was dying. We didn’t have room for criminals. My mother… my mother was good and kind and compassionate, and there was no one less deserving of that title. She hated sentencing our people there, but she was a judge. She didn’t make the law. Everyone knew that’. 

 

‘Is that why these people from Fort Rozz have such a vendetta against you?’ Cat frowns. ‘Wait. If they had their wings removed, how come they have them now?’

 

‘You know that my powers originated from this world, right? Its the same with my accelerated healing. I guess that when they got here, they simply grew back’. She sighs, and shrugs. ‘But its not an easy thing to forgive’. 

 

‘And your aunt?’ Cat asks, in an attempt to turn the conversation away from memories that are clearly painful to the young woman. 

 

Kara’s smile widens, genuine and bright, and the ghosts in her eyes seem to flee in the face of a happy memory. ‘My aunt… if you think that my wings are beautiful, Cat, you should have seen hers. They were… they were the most beautiful wings I’ve ever seen. I can’t even…I wouldn’t even know how to describe them’. 

 

She glances at Cat’s face, and laughs again, a sound that is joyful, that fills Cat’s head until it rings. ‘Not a very good story when I can’t describe the best part, is it?’

 

Cat smiles softly. ‘You’re doing fine. Just…’ she leans back, and closes her eyes. ‘Feel free to keep talking’. 

 

Supergirl talks, a lot more than Cat expected. She talks about her mother, and her father, and her aunt and Krypton’s red sun. She talks as sleep descends on Cat, and when she stops, Cat almost doesn’t register it. 

 

She’s half asleep, and her head has fallen to Supergirl’s shoulder. Darkness is closing in on her, and she imagines she can feel the press of feathers against her arm. ‘Tell me’, she mumbles, her eyes drooping closed, ‘how do you hide them?'

 

Supergirl (Kara), chuckles. Cat feels the ghost of the young woman’s fingers on her shoulder, circling back and forth, lulling her into sleep. ‘Not today, Cat’. 

 

‘Mmm, you will one day’.

 

Cat falls asleep to the sound of the woman’s laughter, and the soft promise of another day. ‘Maybe, Cat. Maybe’. 

 

She dreams of Supergirl holding her close in strong arms, and the heavy beat of wings in her ears. She dreams of a warm wind in her face and soft feathers curling around her. She dreams that she is safe and secure, and that she is flying. 

 

She wakes up in her own bed to one of the worst hangovers she’s had in years, and a single white feather on her bedside table.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Alex wonders if she is out of her mind, crouching in the corner of a sparse, stark white corridor in a facility that bares no name, no logo, but screams of a military operation. 

 

Hank’s voice is dry in her ear,  _‘don’t back out on me now, Agent Danvers’_ , and Alex draws what strength she can from that familiarity, from the fact that they would not be here if Hank hadn’t agreed with her suspicions. 

 

They wouldn’t be here if Hank hadn’t found this base, quite by accident, flying over head with Kara that one, secret time, and Alex can’t quite get over how miraculous it is that he did see it. Well, he didn’t see it really, but he felt the minds walking the corridors, and that was enough to start an investigation. 

 

Despite being underground, there doesn’t seem to be a spot of dirt anywhere in sight. There also doesn’t seem to be anyone around, and it puts her on edge. 

 

Kara is keeping a look out, high above them while Hank monitors security feeds and radios, and they are the only two other people involved in this operation, because they shouldn’t really be there at all. 

 

They have no idea whose jurisdiction this base falls under, but Kara doesn’t care, and so Alex doesn’t really either. Hank thinks that once they have what they’ve come for in their possession, they’ll be able to claim custody, because that is what their organisation does. 

 

They are there because one of Kara’s people is trapped somewhere in this winding maze of corridors, and they are there to get them out. 

 

Alex began to suspect that the military had access to one of Kara’s people, one of the Fort Rozz escapees, when Lane first tested his machine against Kara. 

 

He’d said, _we’ve been developing a weapon specifically designed to bring down your people_ , ignoring the anger in Kara’s eyes, the way her wings spread wide as if sensing an attack, _you might be on our side, for now, but there are those who are not._

 

Hank had frowned slightly, a crease in his impassive mask, and said, _how have you been developing that technology?_

 

And Lane had replied, a strange, secretive glint in his eyes,  _‘we have our resources_ ’. 

 

But logically, there was only one way they could’ve developed that technology. When Hank revealed himself to be J’onn, he’d told Alex that he’d read the General’s mind in that moment, and had discovered that they did indeed have a Kryptonian held captive somewhere in a secretive base, and that was where it began. 

 

They are acutely aware of the risk they are taking, because this is, after all, a criminal sentenced to Fort Rozz, but if they can convince whoever it is to help them, then Kara will have another ally in a war that Alex is terribly afraid she’ll lose. 

 

It was enough of a shock for Kara to discover that her uncle was alive and well and hellbent on humanity’s subjugation and destruction. The moment she found out that one of her people were being held in military hands, giving Lane obvious access, she’d become resolutely determined to save them. 

 

 _Whoever they are,_ she’d said, a stubborn set to her jaw that Alex has become all too familiar with since her sister revealed herself to the city, _they were abandoned by Non and his people. If we help them, maybe they’ll help us. They might even know how to bring down the Myriad Project_. 

 

And so, here Alex is, moving in a half crouch along corridors that give her no cover, and she feels far too exposed, far too much of an easy target, but her gun is out and her hands are steady, and this is her job, after all. She can’t think about her personal stake in the matter. 

 

Hank directs her to the only section of the facility that isn’t monitored by cameras, a section that, thanks to Kara, they know is shielded by lead. She comes across one guard, standing outside the very room they’re trying to get to, and she takes him out with practised ease. She wonders if the minimal security means that this will be easier, or harder to pull off. 

 

 _‘You’re there, Agent Danvers’_ , Hank says, calm and steady in her ear.  _‘Remembers, any communication inside that room will be impossible. We won’t be able to warn you if the guards approach’._

 

 _‘I’m giving you three minutes to get out before I come in’,_ Kara chimes in, and Alex nods, because she knows that her sister can see her. 

 

She swipes the guard’s key against the door, and steps inside, dragging the man’s body behind her. She pulls off her mask, and when she turns, she takes in several things at once. 

 

The room is practically a mirror of the one they have back at the DEO, but its smaller, almost claustrophobic, and familiar green light washes over the space, leaving no edge, no cranny, hidden. The cage in the centre of the room is bare, aside from a thin, ratty looking mattress. There is a woman sitting in the centre of the cage, her legs crossed and her hands clasped in her lap, and when she lifts her head from inspecting the man that Alex practically threw at her feet, Alex feels her heart leap into her mouth, because what she’s seeing, the face before her, its impossible. 

 

Alura stares back at her, a hint of surprise in her pale green, almost grey eyes, but otherwise her expression is cool and calm and unreadable. She looks slightly thinner than her holographic image, the angles of her face sharp and jutting in the sickly light, but there is a fierce beauty in her face that reminds her of Kara, of the woman’s daughter, _her daughter_ , and Alex feels momentarily like she can’t breathe. 

 

The woman’s wings are hidden from view, and Alex wonders what they look like, whether they are white like Kara’s, whether they can barely fit in her small, cramped cage. There is a streak of pure white in the woman’s hair that gives Alex pause, but then Alura opens her mouth and says, ‘are you new?’ and Alex jolts out of her daze. 

 

Alura’s voice is a croak, as if she hasn’t spoken in a long, long time, and Alex wonders how long she’s been here, _god_ , she feels almost ill, because she’s looking at Kara’s mother, _her mother_ , and she says, almost breathlessly, shaken from her calm, ‘Alura?’

 

The woman jerks back, as if Alex has struck her, and her mouth twists in a snarl. ‘How do you know that name?’ she spits, and she looks momentarily afraid, before that mask falls back into place. 

 

‘I…’ she hadn’t counted on this, hadn’t counted on it at all, because this woman should be dead. ‘I know it because -’ 

 

‘I have never uttered that name’, the woman’s voice is still a snarl, taunt with tension, even if her mask is unreadable, ‘where did you hear it? Did you capture another one of my people?’

 

‘No, no, Alura, I -’ 

 

‘I am _not_ Alura’, the woman practically spits, ‘as you well know. Give up this pretence. This tactic of yours is tiring’. 

 

Alex swallows hard, and glances at her watch. They have precious little time, and she can tell by the set of this woman’s shoulders, that this not-Alura will not come with her willingly. She steps up to the cage, and looks the woman directly in the eyes. ‘I know that name because of Kara’. 

 

The little colour in the woman’s face drains from her, and she is on her feet immediately, moving with surprising speed despite the lights designed to impair her, and every line in her body is taunt and tense and the woman hisses, ‘Kara is dead’, and the sorrow in her eyes is suddenly startlingly clear, ‘and you are not fit to speak her name’. 

 

‘Al - Kara’s not dead’. The woman’s jaw clenches, and it is startling how the mention of a name can rip the mask from her face, even as she struggles to regain it. ‘You - her parents put her in a pod and sent her to Earth before Krypton’s destruction. She crashed here the same year that you must have arrived. My family took her in. She’s my sister’. 

 

It is probably far too much information to reveal, but she has a choice between doing whatever it takes to get this woman to believe her, to come with her, or waiting for Kara to arrive, and if they’ve been discovered, that could have terrible consequences. 

 

The woman stares back at her, her jaw set and her shoulders unyielding, her eyes raw with pain and sorrow, and snaps, ‘I do not believe you’. 

 

Alex pulls her phone from her back pocket, briefly thankful that her lock screen is still a picture of her and Kara, and presses it against the glass. The woman steps closer slowly, and as she does, the mask falls away. She presses her hands against the glass and stares at the photo with undisguised disbelief, but it is disbelief tinged with awe and grief, and a glimmer of hope that is slowly growing and gleaming despite the woman’s clear attempts to hold it back. 

 

Alex keeps her eyes trained on the woman’s face, and she feels shaken by the emotion she sees there, feels like its cascading over her despite the physical barrier between them. ‘Her name is Kara Zor-El. Her mother was Alura, the first daughter of the House of El, and she was a judge on Krypton. She sent her daughter here to escape her planet’s destruction. Kara is beautiful and strong and brave and…’ she pauses, her eyes shifting over the woman’s shoulder, searching for a glimmer in the air, a sign of the woman’s hidden wings, but she sees nothing, ‘and her wings are white’. 

 

A tremor runs through the woman, and she tears her eyes away from the photo to look at her. Her eyes are bright and gleaming, filled with tears that Alex doesn’t think will fall, and she looks horribly lost and confused and Alex wonders again how long the woman has been here, and just what they have been doing to her. Alex lifts her hand, and presses it against the glass where the woman’s hand is resting, as if she can reach through and take her hand and _make_ the woman believe her. The woman looks down at their hands, and she licks her lips. ‘Who are you?’ she asks, a soft, broken sound, and when she meets her eyes, the hope in her eyes is a beautiful, fragile thing. 

 

‘My name is Alex. I’m here to rescue you. But we need to go now’. 

 

The woman regards her again with that fragile, vulnerable look, and then nods. Alex lets out the breath she’d been holding, and moves quickly to the key pad. She jabs in the number Hank made her memorise, and the door hisses open. They probably have about five minutes to get out, now, before reinforcements arrive. 

 

The woman who is not Alura, and yet whose love for Kara is written all over her face, steps out of the cage, and her legs shake. She holds on to the edge of the cage, and Alex says, ‘can you walk?’

 

The woman licks her lips, and then her spine straightens, the raw, vulnerable expression Alex had been privy to disappearing behind that mask again. She squares her shoulders, and nods. ‘Lead the way, Alex’. 

 

Alex puts her mask back on, and hands her the guard’s gun as they leave, and the woman grips the weapon like its a lifeline. There is a look in her eye as they move through the corridors, and Alex knows that whatever resistance they meet will not be able to contain them. This woman would rather die than return to that cage, that much is clear from the fire in her eyes. Alex decides that it won’t come to that. 

 

They do meet resistance, a group of three guards that come around the corner with weapons made of kryptonite, green knives and what Alex recognises as tranquilliser guns. She moves before they can register that their target is not alone. She takes two of them down with nothing but her hands, and despite her state, the woman takes on the third guard with ease, keeping him from Alex’s exposed back, slamming him to the ground with her knee in his back, knocking him out cold by the time Alex has finished with hers. 

 

The woman looks a little out of breath by that point, the pinch around her mouth indicating a pain she won’t admit, and all she does it nod at Alex, and they continue on. 

 

They move well together, taking on another two, small groups of guards by the time they’ve nearly reached the last corridor, and by that time, the woman is deathly pale, and it looks like she’s having trouble keeping herself upright. 

 

Despite the urgency of the situation, Alex says, ‘will you let me help you?’ before she makes a move to touch the woman, because it is clear that she has suffered here, and Alex wants to respect her space. 

 

The woman's breath is coming in short, shallow wheezes, a hand pressed to her ribs, and her face is drawn and pale. She looks at Alex with a hint of wariness, but she also looks slightly confused, as if Alex is a puzzle she can't work out. She nods, and Alex exhales sharply in relief.

 

She steps forward and slips her arm around the woman's waist, tucking herself underneath woman's arm. She grasps the hand on her shoulder, more for reassurance than support, and the weight of the woman drops onto her shoulders.

 

She can feel the strength in the woman's muscles as they move, steel against her hand, and she takes some comfort in the fact that despite clearly being a prisoner here, she can't feel the woman's ribs beneath her hand.

 

She also can't feel the distinctive brush of feathers against her arm, and for a moment, as they move, she wonders if the woman is keeping them out, to balance herself, but the more they move, the more a horrible realisation forms at the back of her mind.

 

They're nearly at the exit when a large man rounds the corner. He's wielding a baton in one hand and a knife in the other, and he swipes at the woman with the latter, as if she's suddenly become expendable to them. Alex spins, pushing the woman against the wall, using herself as a shield, and she feels the sharp sting of the knife slice across her back, numbed by adrenaline, before she releases the woman and turns, ducking under the man's arm and slamming her elbow against his neck. She darts out of his flailing reach, and brings the but of her gun across his face as hard as she can.

 

She turns from his slumped form, back to the woman, and extends her hand. 'Come on. We need to move'.

 

The woman is staring at her like she's just done something unbelievable, surprise clear in her eyes. 'You're hurt', she says, like she isn't the one whose ribs are clearly broken.

 

Whose wings are clearly missing.

 

Alex shakes her head. Adrenaline is numbing the pain at the moment, and she thinks it was shallow anyway. 'I'll be fine. If we get out of here'.

 

The woman licks her lips, and seems to come to a decision. She takes Alex's hand, and her fingers are strong and warm. Alex ducks under her arm again, and the woman says, 'Astra'.

 

Alex blinks, glancing at the woman in her peripheral vision. 'What?'

 

'My name is Astra'.

 

Astra. The name feels terribly familiar, and it's not until the exit is in sight that Alex recalls whispered words in the dark, tucked under the sheet, of a world and a family that died long, long ago.

 

'You're Kara's aunt', she says, and even if she doesn't understand how any of this is possible, how this woman is alive, she imagines the look on Kara's face when she discovers that her aunt, who she loved and lost, is alive, that she's not alone anymore, and she thinks that everything will be okay.

 

She decides then and there, with Kara's aunt leaning heavily on her shoulders, that she will do whatever it takes to make sure that this chance for Kara to reunite with her family will not slip through their fingers.

 

She will protect this Kryptonian without wings, no matter what.

 

~ ~ ~

 

Kara can sort her life into categories. Into a series of events that are before, and after. 

 

There is the day Krypton dies. Losing her world, her parents, everything she had ever known.

 

There is the day she meets Alex (Eliza, Jeremiah, but in the end, mainly Alex). Her sister in everything but blood. The person she loves more than anyone in the world. 

 

There is the day she becomes Cat Gran’t assistant. Prickly, intelligent, terrifying Cat Grant, who Kara thinks she’ll always be invisible to, until the incident with Bizarro. 

 

There is the day she reveals her wings and her powers to the world, and Cat dubs her Supergirl, a name that she might hate at the time, but comes to embrace and defend as fiercely as if it was her own idea. 

 

And then there is the day she, Hank and Alex break into a high security facility.

 

She feels like she can’t breathe properly until Alex steps out of the room lined with led, the captive by her side. She can’t see who it is from this angle, but then she turns away and focuses on watching the horizon, the area around the facility. She’s confident that Alex can get them both out, and that Hank will tell her if she’s needed. 

 

‘ _Kara_ ’, she hears Alex’s voice in her ear, and she’s immensely relieved,  _‘meet us at the emergency rendezvous point’._

 

‘What? Why? Aren’t we going straight back to the DEO?’

 

_‘There’s… something you need to see first. Just meet us there, okay?’_

 

 _‘And Supergirl’,_ Hank cuts in,  _‘do a lap of the perimeter first. We don’t want to be followed’._

 

‘Yeah, sure’. She wonders briefly at the tension in Alex’s voice, but then she turns and flies off to do as Hank asked. 

 

She’s thorough about it, just as Alex and Hank have taught her to be. She observes the guards scrambling about and calling their superiors. She doesn’t hang around to listen, because she doesn’t want to be detected (Hank repeatedly warned her of the possible consequence of being seen involved in this. 

 

By the time she arrives, she can see Hank leaning against the car, and Alex pacing. There is another figure, a woman standing with her back to her. 

 

She lands, folds her wings in, and crosses her arms. ‘Seriously, what’s going on? Why -’ 

 

The woman leaning against the car turns, and the whole world grinds to a halt. She suddenly feels like she can’t breathe, and even though she was standing perfectly straight, she stumbles, like she’s been hit across the back of the head. ‘Aunt Astra?’ she gasps, because she feels like there is a fist stuck in her throat, and surely she has to be imagining this. This cannot be real. Her aunt is dead, everything but her memory lost to a world that couldn’t be saved. She cannot be standing there, looking pale and drawn, her eyes slightly narrowed as if she’s squinting against the sun. 

 

But then Astra smiles, awed, soft and beautiful, and her hand lifts, reaching for her (her hand is shaking, and Kara is half aware of what that means), and she says, ‘hello, Little One’, and by Rao, she sounds the same, she sounds _real_. 

 

Kara steps forward slowly, aware that her wings are extending out, as if to balance her, because her legs feel shaky, and she’s having trouble breathing. She lifts her hand, and her hand is shaking too, and when their fingers touch, any restraint holding her back snaps. 

 

She launches forward and Astra opens her arms to meet her embrace, and its too fast, she doesn’t have control, their torsos slam together and she knocks them both backwards against the car, and she hears the hiss that escapes through Astra’s teeth and she says, ‘I’m sorry, I -’ but then everything cracks apart and she starts to cry, and she can’t stop. 

 

Because Astra wraps her arms around her and presses back against her and she is _real_ , she is _alive_ , and this shouldn’t be possible but she doesn’t care, she curls her wings around them to shield them from everything, from the world, and she grasps at Astra’s shoulders, at her back, pressing her hands against her shoulder blades and her spine and her hips, her arms and her neck and the back of her head, she touches anywhere she can reach because she needs to reassure herself that this is real, she _needs_ it, and Astra is doing the same thing, pressing her hands against her back until the trembling in her hands runs up through her arms, and Kara cries turn to sobs. 

 

She sobs, because she is pressing her hands against Astra’s shoulder blades, and there are hard ridges under her fingers in the places where her wings once expanded into the heavens. She sobs, because it was her aunt that Lane got his information from, and she knows that the woman would not have given that up easily. She sobs, because Astra is alive, despite everything, and by Rao it feels like a miracle, it feels like a blessing. 

 

Astra hugs her back, her face tucked into the crook of her neck, and she can feel the woman’s tears on her skin, she can feel her shaking, and she wants to erase everything that must have happened to her, and just hold her. 

 

She thinks about the fact that the last time she hugged Astra, she pressed her face against her stomach and her aunt wrapped her wings around them. She thinks about how Astra disappeared from her life and her mother wouldn’t tell her where she’d gone, but the sorrow in her eyes had been terrifying.

 

She’d thought that she’d lost Astra long before Krypton’s destruction, and she is never, _never_ going to lose her again. 

 

~ ~ ~

 

When Alex rescues her from her cage, Astra expects to feel free. She doesn’t. She can feel the walls of her cell all around her, even with the fresh air caressing her face, even with the sun warming her skin, she can feel glass walls pressing in all around her. 

 

Her legs shake, and she has to squint against the blinding light of the sun. She can’t breathe without pain lancing around her rib cage. 

 

She feels as helpless and weak as a newborn child, and she _hates_ it. It is worse than the unending silence of her cell, worse than that timeless, cramped cell that was punctuated only by military men and their desire for information. 

 

She feels like there are weighted chains locked around her ankles.

 

And then Kara is there, _Kara_ , Kara who is more beautiful than she could have imagined, who is _alive_ , and her niece is hugging her and the sensation she experiences is like the day she woke up on Earth and found that her wings had grown back. The feeling bursts through her, starting in her heart and flooding to the tips of her fingers, like an electric shock, and for the first time since she woke up in that cell, she feels _alive_. 

 

She can’t describe exactly what she is feeling, because it is almost too much, feeling so much after forcing herself to feel nothing, but she knows that it is warmth and love and affection, this she knows, this she _remembers_ , and it is so, so different from her years in that cold, sterile cell, that she thinks that she might cry. She feels it welling up in her throat, spilling into her mouth and she bites down on her cheek and buries her face in Kara’s shoulder, wrapping her arms around her like she can breathe her in, like she can find a part of herself in the security of Kara’s arms, like she can find safety in the cocoon of Kara’s wings. Kara is crying, squeezing her too tightly but she doesn’t care, she doesn’t care that its difficult to breathe, because she feels like Kara is holding her together, and she feels more overwhelmed than she did when the sun’s rays began to change her.

 

She wants to stay there forever, with Kara’s soft wings pressed against her, but of course, it has to end. 

 

But Kara doesn’t let go of her hand, and by Rao, after everything, after losing her wings and Krypton ( _Alura_ , her mind whispers) and Kara, and her wings _again_ , after endless years of silence and loneliness and torture (she thinks it’s been four years, but maybe it was more), with Kara’s hand in her own, she thinks that maybe she can face anything. 

 

~ ~ ~

 

She is given over to Alex’s care. Astra doesn’t really understand why. She’d prefer to remain with Kara, Kara who is alive and well and beautiful, who she never wants to lose sight of again, but it is something to do with official policy, with the fact that she is a criminal from Fort Rozz, even if she’s defected to their side, she needs to be monitored, and she would probably have no trouble understanding it if she made the effort, but she is tired. 

 

By Rao, she is so, so tired. 

 

It is an exhaustion that has taken root deep, deep in her bones, and even if she manages to hide it, even if she stands tall and straight and her mask doesn’t waver, she can feel it. 

 

There is also some talk about Alex being qualified, and she has no idea what that means. 

 

Its not until her powers start to manifest again, after forcibly being dormant for five years (was it five? Sometimes she isn’t sure. It felt like an eternity, one that stretched on and on, admittedly shorter than the timeless expanse of the Phantom Zone, but an eternity nonetheless). 

 

She’d forgotten how overwhelming it was. To suddenly be aware of every noise, of every smell, to be hyper aware of the brush of fabric against her skin, of how the very air suddenly has layers to it, like she can taste the smells of this chaotic city. 

 

She wonders sometimes if there is any peace to be found in this world. 

 

And yet… and yet she does find peace. She finds it in Kara, when her niece wraps her arms and wings around her to shield her from the world. If she has to be overwhelmed by anything, at least the radiance of her niece doesn’t hurt her. 

 

And however skeptical she may have been about Alex’s ‘qualifications’, the young woman seems to know what she’s doing. 

 

The first time she becomes so overwhelmed that she ends up curled in a ball on Alex’s couch, Kara is not there. She hates how exposed it makes her feel, how weak, but she can’t stop it. 

 

And then Alex is there. 

 

If Astra wasn’t overwhelmed and tired to her very bones, she’d flinch away from the young woman’s hands. But everything is too much, the sounds and smells from the street, the shift of the couch beneath her, and when Alex speaks, she almost doesn’t hear her. ‘Astra. Astra, I need you to focus on me, okay?’

 

She feels the woman’s hands on her own, warm and strong and gentle, and she flinches away. 

 

‘Astra’, Alex’s voice sounds somehow both far too loud, and oddly muffled. ‘I’m here to help, okay?’

 

Astra wants to resist. She wants to pull away and find a way to deal with it herself, because she’s done it before. (She didn’t do it alone then, either, she had her soldiers, she had, in a strange way, Non, and she _had her wings_ ). She should be stronger than this. 

 

But by Rao, she is _tired_ of fighting. 

 

She lets Alex take her hands. The woman fits their fingers together, and then shifts closer. ‘Astra, focus on me. Take deep breaths, regulate your breathing, and try and block out everything else. Just focus. Can you do that?’

 

Astra takes a deep breath, and tries. She takes deep breaths through her nose, and lets them out slowly through her mouth. She focuses on Alex’s hands in her own, the strength in her fingers, the pulse in her thumb. She frowns. She pulls her hands from Alex’s, and shifts them to her wrists, finding the steady beat of her pulse. She hears Alex swallow, and wrap her fingers around her wrists, holding her there. The thump of the woman’s pulse grows louder the more she focuses, until it is like a drum beating against her very skin, but it is better, so much better than the chaos of the world outside. 

 

Her head is still spinning, a headache thumping behind her eyes, but now there is an anchor in the storm. She grits her teeth, and she wonders if her grip on the woman is too tight. Alex doesn’t protest. She says softly, ‘breathe, Astra. Just breathe’. 

 

She focuses on the woman’s pulse thumping beneath her fingers, and regulates her breathing to match the steady beat. She focuses on the soft scent of the woman, an alluring smell that she cannot identify, on the soft skin of the inside of her wrists, and the sound of her voice as she repeats the words, over and over. Gradually, the chaos of the world outside fades, and everything becomes a single, unwavering point. The world narrows to Alex, and Astra finds she can breathe again. 

 

~ ~ ~

 

Of course, it cannot last, because they’re involved in a mission that goes wrong, and Hank is captured by Astra’s soldiers. Or her former soldiers. Alex isn’t really sure whether the woman still considers herself to be their General. 

 

Astra winds up in a cage again, and what hurts more than the necessity of it, is the woman’s expression. She doesn’t look betrayed, or even surprised. She looks almost resigned, as if she expected this, as if she always believed that her freedom was temporary. 

 

Kara is vocal in her outrage. Alex is silent in hers. 

 

And Astra is cool and calm and composed, even back in a cage, even with kryptonite casting green light over her skin, until General Lane arrives. 

 

When the man steps into the room, Alex and Kara a step behind him, trying to reason with him, to explain that Astra _will_ give them the information they need if they just let her out of the cell, Astra has her back to them. 

 

Lane’s expression is the first warning, the first sign that they are missing a piece of the puzzle. And then Astra turns, and her eyes come to rest on Lane, and her perfect, expressionless mask falls. 

 

She looks, in that moment, more terrified than Alex could have ever imagined. 

 

The woman practically throws herself backwards, pressing up against the glass of her cell, and her eyes are wild, like a wounded animal backed into a corner, and fear makes her look terrible young, young and vulnerable and Alex feels a surge of something deep in her chest, a surge of the same protectiveness that she feels towards Kara. Lane hasn’t even opened his mouth yet, and she already knows that there is something very wrong. 

 

She thinks about the vow she made to herself, that she would protect Astra no matter what she had to do, and she knows already that she’s about to be forced to break it. 

 

Lane's expression is hard to read, but he looks genuinely surprised, and when he folds his arms over his chest and says, 'well, this is a coincidence', Alex knows she was right.

 

Kara steps in front of the man, her wings shifting into view gradually, and the look on her face is almost dangerous. 'What is this?' She asks, tense and on edge, because even if she brought Astra here, it hurts her to see how genuinely afraid her aunt looks.

 

Lane ignores her, speaking over her shoulder to Astra, Astra, whose composure has returned, who is pale if expressionless, whose hands are pressed flat against the glass. 'You know how this goes, General, so are you going to tell me what I want to know, or must we do this the hard way?'

 

Astra spits. 'You know I've never told you what you wanted to know. This time will be no different'.

 

There is a faint look of horror in Kara's eyes that mirrors the feeling in Alex's chest. Kara’s wings unfurl to their full extent, looming over them, and she says, ‘leave her alone’, and there is power and authority in her voice. 

 

‘Agent Danvers’, Astra's voice cuts through the chaos, calm and commanding, and when Alex looks at her, she thinks she sees a hint of the General that she must have been. That she still is. ‘Please escort Supergirl from the room’. 

 

Kara’s eyes go wide. Her wings drop and fold in, and she spins to stare at her aunt. ‘Astra, what are you doing?'

 

Astra switches languages, her lips forming the syllables of a language that is well and truly alien, but not foreign to Alex. She says, ‘ _there are consequences to interfering with these people, Little One, and I will not see you pay them for my sake’._ Her shoulders twitch as she says it, and Alex suddenly understands why Non and his supporters have their wings, while Astra does not, before her suspicions are confirmed.  _‘They have already done their worst’._

 

Kara’s eyes go very wide, and she seems to freeze. Astra glances at Alex, and raises her eyebrows, jerking her head towards the exit. Alex swallows tightly. She wishes there was something she could do, but Astra is right. If she lets Kara intervene, her sister may lose her freedom, in every sense of the word. 

 

She drags Kara away, and the sound of Astra’s screams rings in her ears like an accusation. 

 

~ ~ ~

 

Alex goes to speak to Astra afterwards, and finds that Kara is already there. She pauses in the doorway to listen to the conversation, loathe to interrupt any moments between these two people who have lost and found each other, and have had such a short space of time to process it. 

 

Kara is kneeling on the floor next to Astra’s cell, a hand pressed against the glass. Her wings are tucked in neatly, trailing out behind her like the train of a long formal gown. She’s saying, ‘- I thought you said that they… that they took your wings when they sentenced you to Fort Rozz’. 

 

Astra is sitting pressed against the glass, her arms wrapped protectively around her knees. She looks drawn, the lines of her face deepened in pain, the set of her jaw sharp and tight. She sighs heavily. ‘They did. But they… they grew back, here. When this world’s military captured me, they wanted information that I refused to give. They thought that…’ her mouth twists, and Kara presses closer, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes to spill over, despite her clear attempts to contain them. Astra lifts a hand, and presses it over Kara’s, as if she wants to comfort her niece. ‘They thought that taking my wings would break me’. She shakes her head, a pained smile curving her lips. ‘They were right, in their own way. But it was nothing that I had not faced before’. 

 

Kara presses her forehead against the glass, and closes her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry, Aunt Astra, I should have -’ 

 

‘Little One, I would rather face an eternity in this cage than see you hurt by that man’. 

 

‘Don’t, Aunt Astra’. Kara lifts her head and Astra reaches up, pressing her hand against the glass over Kara’s face. Her fingers move in the ghost of a caress. ‘You have suffered so much and I… I didn’t do anything. I just let it happen’. 

 

‘That was a trifle, Little One’. 

 

‘That doesn’t - ’ Kara seems to choke. She takes a deep breath, and stares at her aunt for a moment, as if she’s trying to memorise every line and angle of the woman’s face. ‘I will find a way to fix this. I’ll get you out of this, okay? I’m not going to lose you again’. 

 

Astra says nothing. She smiles, and despite the pain pinching the corners of her eyes, it is soft and gentle, and Alex feels her heart clench. 

 

She steps into the room, and clears her throat. Kara looks up sharply, but relaxes upon seeing her. Astra doesn’t move from her position, her hand still resting against the glass, but the softness leaves her expression immediately. Alex says, ‘Kara, could you give us a minute?’

 

Kara blinks, glancing back at her aunt, as if to ask whether she’s okay with the request. Astra nods minutely. Kara leaves, brushing her hand across Alex’s shoulder as she goes. 

 

Alex steps closer to the cage, and then drops down into a crouch in front of Astra, so that she’s not looming over her. The first thing she says is, ‘I’m sorry, Astra’.

 

The woman looks a little taken aback by the apology. Her eyes flick over Alex’s face, perhaps searching for signs of deceit. She won’t find any. After a moment, the woman sighs, and the hostility in her eyes lessens. ‘You are a soldier, Alex. You were just following orders’. 

 

Alex lets out a long breath. She takes it as a good sign that the woman referred to her by her given name, rather than her title. ‘I want to fix this’, she says, ‘but you’re going to have to listen to what I have to say’. 

 

Astra tilts her head. ‘I’m listening’. 

 

Alex hesitates for a second. ‘You and I both know that you sent him to the wrong place’. 

 

Astra arches an eyebrow, but there is a slight smirk playing about her mouth. ‘What gave you that impression?’

 

‘You said that they’d never been able to get any information out of you. Somehow I doubt that would change, now’.

 

Alex wonders if she imagines the faintly impressed look that passes over Astra’s face. The woman shifts forwards onto her knees slowly, her hands folded in her lap. ‘You certainly seem to have more common sense than all his people put together. Go on, Alex’. 

 

Alex shifts forwards too, and places her hands against the glass. She leans forwards, and lowers her voice. She tries to let the woman see how awful she feels about what just happened. She wonders if all the progress they made has gone out the window. ‘Astra… if I thought letting you go would solve all our problems, I would, without hesitation’.

 

Astra blinks. Something around her eyes softens, but her expression remains carefully blank. ‘But?’

 

‘But it won’t. We were only able to retain custody of you because legally, all aliens are meant to be given over into our care. But right now, because its your soldiers, its out of our hands. If I let you go, or find a way to help you escape, you’ll be running for a long time, possibly for the rest of your life. And that means that you’ll never get to be in Kara’s life’. 

 

Astra’s eyes close, and she swallows tightly. Her shoulders twitch, and she lifts her hand to press against the glass. She looks like she’s trying to keep herself upright. ‘I take it you have a suggestion?’

 

‘Tell us where to find Hank’. Astra’s eyes fly open, and Alex goes on quickly, ‘not the DEO. Tell me, or just Kara. I know that you don’t trust us, and after this, after everything, I don’t blame you. But if Kara can rescue Hank using information you give us, rather than Lane, it’ll prove that our methods are better than his. It will show that you’re on our side. Hopefully, Hank will be able to ensure that you stay in our custody’.

 

‘Those are a lot of assumptions based on a possible scenario, Alex’. Astra’s frown is severe. ‘And it would place Kara in significant danger’. 

 

‘If Lane comes back and decides to torture you again, Astra, I don’t think I’ll be able to stop Kara from interfering. _That_ will be dangerous for her’. Astra closes her eyes again. Alex sighs. ‘Why didn’t you just tell him, Astra? You’ve been giving us information about your soldiers since we got you out’. 

 

Astra licks her lips. She chuckles softly, a dry, humourless sound. When she opens her eyes, she looks sad and tired and pained, and Alex lifts her hand automatically. Astra’s eyes snap to their aligned hands, and she says quietly, ‘I spent five years refusing to give that man any information. It was… force of habit’. 

 

Alex leans in closer to catch Astra’s eye. She stares into the woman’s eyes, and says, ‘Astra, let us fix this. Let us _try_. Please’. 

 

Astra stares at her for a long moment. Her fingers flex on the glass, and she nods. ‘Alright, Alex’.

 

Alex knows that it is unwise to make promises that she can’t keep, especially silent ones, ones to herself. But she tells herself that they will fix this, and that Astra won’t see the inside of another cell ever again, and with their hands separated by a single sheet of glass, and she decides that somehow, she will keep this one. 

 

~ ~ ~

 

Cat ends up finding out the truth about Supergirl's wings, about how they really work, simply because when she finds the young woman on her balcony one late, cool evening, her wings are gone. 

 

Cat has always prided herself on keeping her head, in every situation she’s presented with, but her heart leaps into her throat, and for one horrible moment she thinks that the clear tear tracks on her cheeks are because someone has taken her wings. 

 

It’s not logical, of course, because even with her super speed it is unlikely that the woman would have been able to get all the way up here, through Cat’s office and onto her balcony, without anyone noticing, but in that moment, it is a very real fear, and Cat realises in that moment how much she truly cares about Supergirl (about Kara). 

 

Supergirl does not look at her, but she says softly, ‘Cat’, an acknowledgement that sounds like a half sob.

 

Cat swallows tightly. ‘Supergirl… where are your wings?’

 

‘What?’ Supergirl asks, clearly distracted, and when she follows the line of Cat’s gaze, a deep frown furrows her brow. She sighs heavily, as if she’s realised an error but can’t bring herself to care about it, and she shifts her shoulders slightly, more a twitch of her muscles than a shrug. 

 

The air around her back shimmers, like the light has suddenly become fractured, and her wings are just suddenly there, as if they’d never been missing. It is like a trying to focus the lens of a camera, a blur in the distance suddenly taking on sharp form, and Cat feels the breath rush out of her at the revelation. 

 

She knows then, with a surge of relief washing over her, that she is right. The young woman sitting on her balcony is her assistant, Kara, and it feels like a final piece slotting into place. 

 

But it does not bring a feeling of exhilaration or triumph, as she’d been expecting, because she looks at Kara’s face, at the tear tracks glittering in the moonlight, and all she feels is concern. 

 

She steps up closer to the young woman, hugging her elbows to her body, and leans her hip against the rail. ‘Has something happened?’

 

Kara closes her eyes, and several tears spill over, catching on her eyelashes before they track slowly down her cheeks. Cat watches them slide down the curve of her jaw to drop off her chin into the expanse of space below her. Kara takes a deep breath and says, ‘you remember what I told you about my mother? About the people she sentenced to Fort Rozz?’

 

‘Of course’. She remembers every exchange between them with the same detail she remembers every article she’s ever written, more, in fact. When written words have faded, Kara’s voice rings through her mind like a bell. 

 

‘Do you remember what I told you about my aunt?’

 

Cat nods again, and Kara’s mouth twists. ‘I… she… it turns out that our politicians, our officials, our… judges, they knew that our planet was dying. My aunt was a General in our military, and when she found out, she… she became I guess what you’d call an eco-terrorist. She wanted our people to know the truth, and our politicians to do something about it. It took a… violent turn’. She tilts her head up and takes a steadying breath. ‘And my mother sent her to Fort Rozz for it’.

 

Cat blinks. The weight of that sentence settles on her shoulders like a physical burden, because she remembers that Kara’s aunt was her mother’s twin. She frowns suddenly, remembering the other Kryptonians that escaped from Fort Rozz. ‘But… does that mean she’s here?’

 

A smile curves Kara’s mouth, a genuine, bright flash in the dark, but several tears leak from her eyes. ‘Yes. She’s alive’.

 

Cat steps closer to the woman, leaning forward slightly in an attempt to catch her eye. ‘What’s wrong, Supergirl?’

 

Kara licks her lips, and swallows tightly. ‘Five years ago, she was captured by our military. They… they did things to her. Horrible things, and they -’ Kara breaks off, and takes a few deep breathes before saying, ‘they took her wings. Again. And they never grew back’.

 

That same horrible sensation that she’d first experienced when Kara told her about the punishment for criminals on Krypton settles in her gut. ‘Is she… okay?’ 

 

It sounds silly, after what Kara has just told her, but the young woman smiles slightly. She shakes her head, and chuckles dryly. ‘She says she is. She says that she doesn’t care about what happened to her. The fact that I’m alive makes that all seem… irrelevant. But she’s hurting and I… I don’t know how to help her and I just… I wish I could’.

 

Cat lifts her hand, reaching out towards the young woman’s shoulder. Kara shifts, lifts her right wing, and Cat’s fingers find feathers. She freezes. She hadn’t intended to touch the woman’s wings, especially now, when she’s talking about how her aunt has lost her own. She glances at Kara’s face, and sees that the young woman has closed her eyes. Her wing moves, pushing against Cat’s fingers. Cat blinks. Very slowly, she starts to comb her fingers through the woman’s feathers, watching Kara’s face. The young woman tilts her head up, and sighs. Some of the tension in her shoulders seems to fade. 

 

The tears start to fall from her eyes again, and Cat’s heart aches in response. She keeps moving her fingers, and after a long moment, she says, ‘from what you’ve told me about your aunt, she… she loved you just as much as you loved her’.

 

Kara swallows. ‘She once said that she couldn’t love me more if I was her own child’.

 

‘Then maybe’, Cat sighs, ‘maybe that’s all she needs from you. Your love’. 

 

Kara takes a shuddering breath, and presses a hand to her mouth. She turns suddenly, steps forward, and wraps her arms around Cat. ‘Thank you, Cat’, she breathes, and Cat can feel her shirt dampening with tears. 

 

Cat raises her hand slowly, and presses them against Kara’s shoulders. The young woman’s wings unfurl slowly, and Cat feels them brush against her back as they curl around them. She is cocooned in warmth, and despite the fact that she is the one giving comfort, she feels a measure of security and affection that she hasn’t experienced in a while. She swallows tightly. ‘You’re welcome, Kara’. 

 

Kara doesn’t tell her that she is wrong. She doesn’t deny it. She just tucks her face against Cat’s shoulder, and holds her tighter. Cat feels like her heart is beating very loud. 

 

It might sound cliche and dramatic and like something out of a badly written, sappy romantic drama, but with Kara’s arms and wings wrapped around her, and the knowledge that she has been right all this time, and the realisation that she can offer comfort to this woman who she cares about without it being rejected, that she can help her, she feels a such an intense sense of belonging that it leaves her breathless. 

 

She thinks that she might be in love with this wonderful young woman with a heart of gold who has tried to help people in every aspect of her life, who wants to fix things at whatever consequence to herself. Kara might not be an angel, but to Cat, she is nothing less. 


	2. Chapter 2

Knowing that Kara is Supergirl, without doubt, with such certainty, does not change things as much as Cat expected. 

It does not really change things at all. 

Kara is there the next day, just as always, with her coffee at the perfect temperature (she knows now, how Kara manages to keep it warm, and the thought of Kara using her powers for something so small, so personal, and so insignificant in the scheme of things, except it is not, for Cat, makes her smile. She starts her days with a little flutter next to her heart, which is ridiculous and idiotic, and she is not a teenager with a crush, but it is odd, having this precious secret that somehow feels solely her own). Kara’s smile is a little more reserved, a little less blinding, and when she clasps her hands in front of her, her fingers tap together, a sign of anxiety. 

Cat rises smoothly from her seat, and beckons Kara towards the balcony, the coffee warming her hands, Kara’s eyes burning against the back of her neck. She steps aside, shifts slightly further away than she would have even the other day. It is strange, knowing that Kara’s wings are there, but still not being able to see them. She’s not sure how much space she needs to give her. 

Kara chuckles softly, and some of the tension seems to drain from her. ‘You don’t have to do that, Miss Grant. I know how to hide them’. 

Cat leans her hip against the balcony, and raises her eyebrows. ‘How do you hide them? Do you how long I agonised over that? I mean, I’ve known who you were for so long, but figuring out how you managed to hide them was the cause of half my headaches’. 

‘How did you know?’

Cat scoffs at that. ‘You’re not exactly subtle, Kara’.

Kara chuckles again, and her smile widens. ‘Well, most people wouldn’t be able to get past the fact that your assistant doesn’t have wings’. 

‘I am not most people’. 

Kara’s laugh is warm and delighted. Her eyes are gleaming behind her glasses. ‘Oh I know’. She hesitates, a hint of anxiety and concern written in the down turn of her mouth. ‘Miss Grant… I need to know if you’re going to fire me for this’. 

Despite the concern, she says it with the authority of Supergirl, without Kara’s sunlit energy, with a kind of deadly seriousness that makes Cat wonder what would happen if she said yes. ‘Why would I fire you, Kara?’

Kara’s eyebrows go up. ‘About a month ago you went on a rant about how Supergirl should be saving people all day every day rather than living whatever double life she had’. 

Cat flickers her fingers, a dismissive gesture, but hides a grimace behind her coffee. She’d been more frustrated than usual that day, irritated by her mother’s presence, missing Carter as she always does when he’s away, aggravated by that voice at the back of her mind that said  _Supergirl_ , whenever she snapped _Kiera._ She’d wanted to get a reaction from Kara, nothing more, she hadn’t intended to hurt, but she’d hoped that Kara would do what she usually did when she disagreed with something she said, would challenge her. Kara’s jaw had tightened, and she’d said,  _maybe she needs her other life as much as this city needs her_ , and Cat had smiled in triumph. 

The smile vanished a moment later, of course, because she realised that that was no confirmation, and she couldn’t latch onto it because Kara would just look at her, blankly, and ask her where she thought her wings were. 

‘You remember, right?’

‘Of course I remember’.

Kara’s jaw tightens again, her shoulders twitching, and Cat sees a very faint glimmer in the air behind her, like a refraction of light, like the haze over the pavement on a scorching hot day. ‘Well… I meant it. I need this job, Miss Grant. I need… I need this part of my life. It keeps me grounded’. She turns to face Cat more fully, gazing at her with that earnestness that seems singular only to her. ‘I… I nearly crossed a line, once. But my life here, it reminded me of why that line was necessary. It brought me back. This place keeps me grounded’. She licks her lips, and her gaze becomes so intense that Cat wonders if she should be worried that the woman is about to shoot lasers at her. ‘ _You_  keep me grounded’. 

Cat’s throat goes very dry, rather suddenly, and so she takes a quick sip of her coffee, ignoring how it almost scalds her throat on the way down. She clears her throat, coughs slightly, and grants Kara a small smile. ‘I have no intention of firing you, Kara, if you truly believe you need this’. 

‘I do’. 

‘Well, there we are. Perhaps you can make the same difference here, Kara’. Cat watch as Kara grins, bouncing on the balls of her feet. ‘Besides’, she adds, letting her lips curve in a slow smile, ‘you’re mine, Supergirl. I wouldn’t throw that away’. 

There is something… something thrilling, about calling her Supergirl to her face, while she’s still dressed as Kara Danvers. It has something curling low in Cat’s stomach, like heat and excitement. It feels daring, in a strange way. 

Kara blushes, ducking her head down, her fingers twisting together. They lapse into silence for a moment, a pause that Cat lets drag on and on. She wonders if Kara is thinking of the night before, of how they embraced. She remembers the feeling she’d experienced, that intense sense of belonging, and shivers slightly, like Kara’s feathers are brushing against her skin. 

‘Well’, she says, shaking herself, ‘enough of that. Our duties call, Kara’. 

She walks back into her office, and Kara follows, like Cat’s own personal guardian angel.  _My angel_ , Cat had said that night so long ago, and she feels a kind of righteousness, thinking it again. She wonders if it is a dangerous thought to indulge. 

The next time Kara is there, a few days later, on her balcony in the evening, dressed as Supergirl with her wings draped over the couch, Cat’s eyes are inexplicably drawn to them, just as always. 

She starts by saying, ‘how is your aunt?’ and Kara’s smile, small and soft and a little sad, is strangely grateful. 

They talk, for some time, about little, meaningless things. Kara tells her about her aunt’s progress, and there is some joy mixed with the sadness in her expression, because she is indescribably happy to have the woman back in her life. Kara asks her about Carter, and Cat has always been good at words, at talking, and there is nothing easier in the world to her than talking about her son. 

Eventually, when a comfortable silence has fallen between them, Cat says, ‘are you going to tell me how you managed to hide them for so long?'

Kara laughs, and the sound is so infectious that Cat can’t help the smile that pulls at her lips. Kara shifts, rising off the couch to stand next to her, leaning against the rail. The space between them is so small that Kara’s wings brush against Cat’s back, and Cat forces herself not to react to the sensation. ‘It was a defence mechanism. Our wings were… completely natural. But it set us apart, when we wanted to explore other planets. Infiltration was pretty difficult with them. Our scientists simply added something to the Codex. Camouflage, if you will. A way to protect them. The… punishment to Fort Rozz wasn’t the only way people could lose their wings’. 

‘When was this?’

‘Generations before our planet died’. 

‘And your wings - you said that they were all individual? That genetics didn’t determine the colour? Was that to do with your scientists?’

‘No’, Kara’s smile is soft, almost reverent. ‘There was no explanation for that. The Codex was designed to create perfection, so, logically we all should’ve had the same wings. But they were always different. Always unique. We… our beliefs were shaped by that. Our religions. Our people believed that one’s wings were a reflection of the soul’. She laughs, her face tilted up towards the heavens. ‘It was a better explanation than the idea that there was a fault with the Codex. That unnerved a lot of people’. 

The sun is setting, and with the golden glow in her hair, the blinding light of her wings, the curve of her smile, Kara has never looked more like the angel that half the city believe her to be. Cat laughs, and says, ‘don’t tell anyone else that. They’re already convinced that you’re an angel. Tell them that your perfect, white wings are a reflection of your soul? You’ll never hear the end of it’. 

Kara looks at her for a long time, a sudden, intense look burning in her eyes. She says, ‘sometimes, I like to imagine what the people of this world would look like, with wings. What they’d say’. Kara’s smile widens, and she shifts slightly, their arms pressing together with the light spilling over them. ‘Your wings would be beautiful, Cat’. 

She is Cat, out here, in this private space where there are no secrets between them. Cat feels like the breath has been sucked out of her, but she has never lost her cool before, never been caught off guard to the point where she is visibly stunned, and this is no exception. She smiles, letting the delight in her heart unfurl across her expression, and it is worth it, for the spark that gleams in Kara’s eyes. 

Kara’s eyes flick down then, to her lips, and something in her expression changes. She turns away, that smile still lingering around her mouth, but Cat’s heart picks up, in a way she knows Kara must hear. 

_My angel_ , she’d said. 

It definitely feels like a dangerous thought. 

But it doesn’t feel like a solitary one, anymore. 

She’s not quite sure what to think of that. 

 

~ ~ ~

 

There is part of Astra that thinks that she should get back to her cause. She came to this planet and became determined to save it, because she lost hers and she thought she lost Kara, and she couldn’t see another fall. Years later, when the Myriad Project was beginning to be realised, she exchanged herself for her troops that had been captured, in order to win their full allegiance, and to infiltrate this world’s military defences. But her people knew nothing of kryptonite and its effects, and this world’s military trapped her in a cage and she realised then, that perhaps it was the worst decision she’d ever made. 

A week after she first refused to answer their questions, and resisted all their methods, she woke up with her wings torn from her shoulder blades, again, and part of her soul, the last part that survived after losing her world, after losing Kara,  _Kara_ , who she loved with every fibre of her being, went cold. 

She never told them what they wanted to know. She endured suffering and punishment and all the tools of torture at their disposal. She succeeded, she thinks, because there was nothing of her  _left_. She was a shell, but that shell was strong and unbreakable, and she would retreat into it, into her memories of the Phantom Zone and the madness that had found her there, in its emptiness, the memory of how it had felt to learn that Krypton was gone, that Kara was gone, (a wound that is still horribly raw, even if Kara is here, now), and somehow whatever they did to her was nothing in comparison. 

She thinks that she might have gone mad, in a quiet, untapped way. It was nothing like the way she raged in Fort Rozz, nothing like the fire that ran in her veins. But days and weeks and months had passed, years without her knowledge, and they’d become a blur. Sometimes they left her alone for random periods of time, and all she knew was sterile white walls and sickly green light, and pain in her shoulders that never went away. 

She thinks that there is some of that madness still within her, but that it has turned inwards, against her, and it finds her in the dark, when hours of working on harnessing her powers with Kara’s aid can be mistaken for a dream.

Every night, without fail, she wakes from nightmares to the cool, calm darkness of Alex’s apartment, and thinks that she’s imagined everything, her rescue, Kara, Alex, all of it, and every night there is a part of her that breaks, again. 

Sometimes, Kara is there, and Kara wraps her in an embrace so tight that she thinks it might crush her, even with their matched strength, and she cannot bring herself to care. She thinks that she could come apart in Kara’s arms and it would be the only peace she’s ever known. 

She could die there, with her niece’s arms around her, with love in her heart when she thought she’d never feel it again, and she’d be happy. 

But there are nights when Kara is not there, because Kara has her own life, and Astra sometimes feels a stirring of guilt for troubling her, from taking away from this life she’s found a place in. She thinks that Kara might be in love with a woman with short golden curls and a soft, reserved smile. This woman is intelligent and powerful in her own right, and she apparently worked out Kara’s identity all on her own, which is a feet, considering that she never saw Kara’s wings unless she was Supergirl. 

On those nights, Astra lies in the dark and tries to calm her racing heart. Sometimes, the violence of her dreams causes her to surge up right, scrabbling at restraints that are no longer there. Sometimes, the muscles of her back spasm, a phantom pain that feels as real as the day it happened - the first, the second, they hurt in different ways, because the first time it was her sister condemning her, and the sorrow in her eyes was worthless in the face of what she was doing, and the second time she’d just got them back, when she’d thought it was impossible, and that hope had been ripped away from her again. 

She doesn’t know which memory hurts more.

No matter how quiet she tries to be, no matter how hard she bites the inside of her cheek to keep the sobs stuck in her throat, Alex always turns up in her doorway. 

She sits on the bed beside her and extends her hands, and Astra thinks that she should question how natural accepting the gesture has become. She takes Alex’s hands in her own and closes her eyes and focuses on the woman, on the steady rhythm of her breathing, on the solid strength in her hands, of the warmth that hangs around her. It steadies her, but she’s never able to sleep afterwards. She drifts, leaning against the headboard in the dark, ghosts flittering in and out of her vision, the shadows shifting to the fathomless darkness of the Phantom Zone, the moonlight glittering green, and it jerks her into wakefulness, and Alex is always there. Sometimes she’s asleep, propped up against the headboard, but their hands stay linked, and even if the woman isn’t conscious, her presence is just as grounding. 

She feels guilty, sometimes, because she knows that Alex is tired, that this war is weighing down on her, that she’s thinking of Kara and how to save her and the least Astra could do would be to let her sleep, undisturbed, but she doesn’t ask Alex to come, and she doesn’t want to tell her to leave. 

She’s grateful in a way she’s never been before, grateful for this woman who rescued her from a cell that her husband had abandoned her to, to this strong, beautiful woman with the heart of a warrior who is wise beyond her years. She’s intrigued and fascinated, by this single gentle, selfless human. 

Alex takes every opportunity to remind Astra that she is not unique, that humans can be kind and gentle and good, but Astra watches the woman sleep sometimes, her head propped up on the headboard, her fingers loosely linked in her own, even in sleep, and wonders if the woman realises how singular she is. 

Kara is like a light in the dark, and Astra gravitates towards her like a moth to a flame. 

Alex has become an anchor in a world that is chaotic and unkind. 

She’s waiting for something to happen, she thinks. Waiting for something to shift between them, for Alex to decide that she’s had enough of babying her, and she waits and waits because she keeps expecting it to happen, for the woman’s kindness and patience to run out, but she waits, and it doesn’t. 

That is how the days and nights pass. They work to stop the Myriad Project, and Astra starts to fight with Kara during her work as Supergirl. She cannot fly anymore (and she accepted long, long ago that her wings are gone for good, that whatever second chance she had here has been taken from here), but she is just as strong as Kara, just as fast. If it is an emergency, and Kara has to leave CatCo to do her duty, Astra will speed up to join her. 

And when they go in together, Kara flies her in, and with her niece’s arms wrapped tightly around her, Astra sometimes forgets that she can’t fly. 

 

~ ~ ~

 

Kara sometimes wonders what Cat’s wings would look like, if she had them. Back on Krypton, it was said that one’s wings were a reflection of the soul, and Kara thinks that if that is true, Cat’s would be breathtaking. 

She can’t get the thought out of her head. It is there, just at the edge of conscious thought, whenever she is around the woman, rising up when she sees Cat’s warmth shining through her prickly exterior, when she catches glimpses of the woman’s wondrous heart. 

She thinks of the woman’s thirst for knowledge, the way she soaks in all the information Kara gives her about Krypton, about her wings, about how they work and why they are different, and wonders if Cat’s wings would extend until they shrouded the heavens, to reflect that mind she has, the empire she has built for herself. 

When she tells Cat about how they disguise their wings, about the legends that developed around them, explanations as to why their wings were different colours, why they could not be explained by the Codex that was designed to create the essence of perfection, Cat looks at her with a strange glint in her eye, a look that has something hot and very unexpected curling deep in her stomach, and when she swallows, her throat is suddenly very tight. 

She’s always been aware of her attraction to Cat. She’s been aware of how that has only grown as their relationship has developed, of how, since that day Cat revealed that she knew her identity, and Kara didn’t deny it, but instead let the woman hug her, it has intensified at an alarming rate. 

But the look in Cat’s eyes suddenly makes her realise that perhaps she is not alone in her feelings. 

She almost doesn’t hear Cat’s response, her quip about Kara’s wings, but she lets herself laugh anyway, to disguise the sudden heat in her cheeks, the hope flittering like a caged bird against her ribs. 

It makes her feel brave, and so she tells Cat that her wings would be beautiful, and she takes a great deal of pleasure in the genuine, delighted smile she receives in return. 

It is only later, as the sun is beginning to set, the windows of the buildings turning a shimmering orange, the cold creeping in, when she finds her arm pressed against Cat’s, watching the way the light bathes Cat’s face in radiance until she glows, until her hair shines like it contains a piece of the sun, that she realises that she knows exactly what Cat’s wings would look like. 

She knows it with such certainty that she wonders if the knowledge has always been part of her. If she realised when she first met Cat, all that time ago when she was still just the formidable woman that Kara was not-so-secretly terrified of, as if instinctively, a part of her knew that there was something far more precious beneath that hard exterior. 

She goes home, and for the first time in a long time, since Red Kryptonite and hurtful words, since Astra returned and that helpless feeling in her gut became something permanent, she picks up her brushes again. 

She paints Cat as she was less than an hour before, with that genuine, pleased smile curving her lips (Kara thinks she will remember that smile until the end of her days), and once she is satisfied with the light, with the line of Cat’s jaw and the curls of her hair, she gives her wings. 

She leaves the painting to dry, and cleans up the mess she made, but she leaves the gold paint on her fingers for hours afterwards, as a physical sign, just to herself, that something between them has irrefutably changed. 

 

~ ~ ~

 

Alex wakes suddenly one night, to a dead silence in her apartment. She lies there, trying to work out what woke her, because usually she wakes up because Astra makes a noise after a nightmare. Alex grew up learning to sleep lightly, so that when Kara woke from nightmares about her parents and her planet, she’d be able to get up and comfort her. It was part of her responsibility, and even now, when she hasn’t slept in the same room as Kara for years, the instinct is there. 

The silence is almost unnerving. She slides quietly from the bed, and tiptoes across the floorboards. The air is frigid, and by the time she’s left her room, there are goosebumps covering her bare legs, and her toes are numb. She’s wearing an oversized shirt that falls to mid thigh, and she tucks her hands into the overlong sleazes in a useless attempt to keep warm. 

Astra is not in her room. Alex blinks rapidly, and takes a deep breath. There is no reason for her to panic, not really. Astra isn’t a prisoner, and she can leave whenever she wants. But this is an unexpected change to a routine that Alex has become very used to. 

‘Astra?’ she calls out, perhaps fruitlessly, but if Astra is anywhere nearby, she might hear her. 

‘I… I’m in here, Alex’. Astra sounds so close that Alex jumps, her heart slamming against her ribs in a way that she knows the older woman must hear. 

She finds Astra sitting in the corner of the bathroom, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees, and her shoulders are shaking. Her jaw is clenched tight, a cord standing out in her neck, and her knuckles are white. She looks almost like she's trying to hold herself together.

Alex squats down on the cold tiles, and stretches out a hand towards the woman. She tries to make herself small and unthreatening, and makes sure that she’s not blocking the path to the door. ‘Astra?’ 

The woman glances at her, and her eyes are clear and sharp. ‘I’m fine, Alex’, she snaps, and her expression is as hard and unyielding as stone. 

Alex blinks. She’s a little taken aback, because Astra  _does_ sound fine, and there are no hints of panic or fear in her eyes. But her shoulders are trembling, almost twitching, and the corners of her mouth are turned down in pain. 

‘You’re not…’ she stops. She’s not sure what to do. This is different from the nights when Astra has awoken from a nightmare, and taken Alex’s hands, and let her comfort her. The woman’s defences are up, and Alex doesn’t want to make it worse. She’s seen the way that Astra looks at the other members of the DEO, at Hank, with an expression that is not exactly one of mistrust, but is wary, and it is so, so justified. She hesitates again. ‘I… I know that you don’t trust us, Astra. I do. And I’m not asking you to. Just… tell me if I can help’. 

Astra blinks, a very faint crease furrowing her brow. The hard edge to her expression seems to waver. She swallows tightly. She lets go of her arm and gestures at her back. Her hand is trembling. ‘Its just my…’ she closes her eyes, and her mouth twitches. Her hand clenches, in an effort to stop it from shaking, but the tremble runs up her arm. ‘The muscles around my… where my wings were’. She takes a deep breath, swallowing tightly. ‘They sometimes… hurt’. 

Alex feels a surge of anger rise in her throat, and her stomach churns with nausea. She hates that Astra is still suffering the physical signs of what happened to her, on top of the mental strain she’s under. She shifts closer, just a little, keeping a safe distance. ‘When Kara’s powers were developing, the extra strain on her wings would sometimes make the muscles around them ache. They strengthened over time, but at first, it caused her a lot of pain’. 

Astra’s frown deepens. ‘Did anything help?'

Alex nods. ‘My mother and I… and my dad, for a while, we would massage her back. It would loosen the tension in the nerves’. She licks her lips, and frowns slightly. ‘I don’t know if it would help you. But if you want, I can try’. 

Astra stares at her for a long, long moment, her eyebrows inclined slightly in an expression that might be a little incredulous. But its not that different from their unconventional sleeping habits, and so she probably shouldn’t be surprised when the woman nods. 

Astra shifts forwards onto her knees, turns her back, curls her fingers around the hem of her shirt. Alex starts to say, ‘umm, you don’t have to -’ but Astra has already pulled it over her head, and Alex  _was not_ prepared for that. 

There had been something about sitting on the cold tiles of her bathroom, and concentrating on trying to get through to the woman that had made her forget what she was actually going to see. 

Astra’s back is covered in numerous pale scars, but it is not that that has Alex’s breath catching in her throat, that has that unique mix of anger and nausea surging up from her stomach, followed by a deep sense of sorrow. She swallows tightly, and shifts forwards on her knees, rubbing her hands together to warm them. ‘We don’t have to sit in here, Astra’, she says, and in the silence, the waver in her voice seems to echo against the tiles. 

Running along the edges of Astra’s shoulder blades are two thick lines of scar tissue. They are not smooth and flat like most of the other scars she can see, but protruding ridges, and they are pink, rather than pale and silver. They  _look_ painful, however old they might be.

Astra says nothing, but she presses her hands against the wall, and every muscle in her back is tense, coiled tight like a spring. Alex thinks that this is a greater display of vulnerability than anything that’s ever passed between them, despite the nights they’ve accidentally fallen asleep side by side, the fact that Astra is letting her see this. 

She lifts her hands, and presses them against Astra’s back, on either side of her spine. Astra stiffens even more, the lithe, strong muscles beneath smooth skin as hard as steal, twitching beneath her fingers. Alex keeps her fingers resting there, but doesn’t move them.  ‘Are you sure that this is okay?’ 

Astra nods, but remains silent. Careful not to touch the scar tissue, Alex starts to move her hands up and down her back, pressing firmly, and gradually works her fingers in small circles up and down the sides of the woman’s spine. 

Astra makes a strange sound in the back of her throat, and Alex freezes. ‘Did that hurt?’

‘…no’, Astra sounds incredulous, and wonderfully relieved, ‘that… that was good’. 

Alex swallows, and it sounds very loud in the silence. She keeps moving her hands, shifting to her shoulders, down the other side of the scar tissue. She listens to the soft sounds that fill the silence, and uses them to judge which places seem to help more, and tries not to think about how something flutters inside her with each soft, breathless sound.

She is cold, sitting there on the tiles, and she imagines that it is worse for Astra, sitting there in nothing but a pair of pyjama shorts, but the soft skin under her hands is warm. 

‘I do, you know’. 

Alex frowns at the back of Astra’s head. Her hair has fallen over her shoulder, and Alex’s eyes are drawn to the curve of the woman’s neck. ‘You do what?’

Astra sighs. ‘You have… done a lot of things for me, Alex, that have put you at risk. You are very brave’. 

Alex almost laughs. ‘Brave?’

‘Not many people would have done the things you have done. Certainly not for me’. Her shoulders twitch under Alex’s hands, but the shaking has stopped. 

Alex shifts her hands to rest on her shoulders, and presses her thumbs against the base of her neck, framing her spine. Astra sighs. ‘What I am trying to say is that despite my reservations about your people, and however unwise it might feel, I… I do trust you, Alex’. 

What can she say to that? She doesn’t know if there is any verbal response to what this woman has just admitted. She thinks of Kara, in that moment, and so she does what Kara would do, because no matter how different these women are, they are astonishingly similar in so many ways. 

She shifts forwards on her knees, and wraps her arms around the woman, around her stomach, and presses her face against the woman’s shoulder. She keeps the embrace loose, waiting to see how the woman will react, and hopes that she hasn’t pushed too far. 

Astra lets out a long sigh, and leans back against her. Her hands come to rest over Alex’s, and they are icy after being pressed against the tiles for so long. The ridges of her wings press into her chest, and Alex tightens her arms. She tries to convey to Astra through nothing but touch that she will  _never_  betray that trust.

The hug is nothing like the accidental, half embraces they’ve woken up in sometimes, when Alex has fallen asleep holding the woman’s hands in an attempt to comfort her. 

Alex knows that. She knows that things will be different after this, that she won’t be able to avoid the feelings that stir in her heart whenever she’s around the woman now. 

By the way Astra fits their fingers together against her stomach, she thinks that the woman might know it, too. 

 

~ ~ ~

 

Cat is taken by Livewire and Silver Banshee, and Kara experiences a kind of terror that chills her to her very bones. 

It is a kind of terror that she has never known before, an intensity that shakes her, that imbeds her with a kind of frantic, defensive rage, and it is all she can do to keep herself calm, to keep herself from taking to the skies and screaming until her throat is raw. 

(She remembers a similar feeling, and she thinks that she felt this once before, a long time ago, when her mother put her in the pod, and she could no longer see her faces, before she was knocked into the phantom zone, she experienced a moment of such terror that she thought that she might shake apart with the strength of it). 

She has some time, at least, she knows that Siobhan wants her dead (she wishes she could reverse what was done, but wishing never got her anywhere), and so she returns to the DEO for help, Barry at her side (thank Rao, thank Rao they have this extra help, this young man who seems to know exactly how to help), and tries not to let how worried she is show. 

Alex picks up on it, of course, and so does Astra, when Kara takes her aside and says quietly, ‘I know we have Barry to help, but I need you, too. We’re stronger together’. 

Astra inclines her head, but there is a curious look in her eyes as she observes her. Kara wonders if she is aware of the anxiety itching beneath her skin. Astra pulls her further from the main room, out of sight from prying eyes (Astra doesn’t like spending too long within the walls of the DEO, and who can blame her, and so no one pays much attention to them), and rests her hand against Kara’s chest, over the symbol of their House. ‘Breathe, Little One. Steady yourself. We will find your human’. 

Kara swallows tightly. She tries to do as Astra instructs, but the thought that Cat might die, that she might lose her, keeps flittering into her mind, glaring like flashing alarms behind her eyes. ‘If she… it would be my fault’. 

Astra frowns slightly. ‘How?’

She explains as quickly as she can. She tells Astra about the incident with the Red Kryptonite that happened only days before Alex rescued her aunt from that cell. She tells her about what she did to Siobhan, and watches Astra’s frown deepen. ‘It is foolish to say that that is your fault, Little One. You were not in control. This man…’ her mouth twists, a look of intense dislike darkening her eyes, and Kara wonders if she’s remembering her own experience with kryptonite, however different it might have been, ‘he was a fool to experiment with such a thing. He is to blame’. 

Kara sighs heavily. She draws Astra in for a hug, because it is easier to focus like that, and wraps her wings around them both. It is easy to pretend that the chaos of the world outside is non-existent, like that. (She tries not to think about how tightly Astra always clings to her, and fails miserably). ‘I know’, she confesses into the cocoon of space between them, ‘but it is hard not to’.

‘I understand, Little One’. 

She thinks that maybe Astra understands that feeling better than anybody. 

‘I promise you, Little One. We will get your human back. All will be well’. 

Kara tries to believe her. Sometimes, with Astra there, in her arms, something that was impossible for so long, was something she never even dared to dream of, it feels like maybe anything is achievable. 

They get Cat back. It is a close call, though, and Kara can’t get the image out of her head, how close the electricity came, how it arched up so close to Cat’s head that her hair stood on end. 

She can’t forget how terrified she’d been in that one second, how she’d felt like the electricity stopped her heart, like it froze her. 

She waits for Cat on her balcony, and she doesn’t realise that her hands are shaking until the woman steps forward, and takes them in her own. Cat is frowning, and the concern in her eyes (concern for her, when it was Cat who was in danger, Kara wonders whether Cat knows how wonderful she is) makes Kara’s heart ache. She can feel a burn behind her eyes (she nearly got Cat killed, she nearly lost her, it would’ve been her fault, no matter what Astra said), and her throat feels very tight. Her wings have expanded wide behind her, curving forwards slightly, as if every part of her, every inch, wants to reach for Cat, wants to make her safe.

Cat tilts her head slightly. ‘Are you alright, Kara? I saw what happened’. 

Kara remembers how it felt when Leslie hit her with her electricity. She wants to tell Cat that it didn’t hurt as much as the thought of losing her. ‘I’m fine, Cat’. 

‘Then what is the matter?’

‘I… I nearly…’  _I nearly lost you, you nearly died, I don’t think I could suffer that, I don’t think I could live through that_ , these are the things Kara wants to say, things she doesn’t know how to confess, things stuck in her throat, and they taste remarkably like tears. 

Cat seems to understand, the frown smoothing from her brow, and she tugs at Kara’s hands gently, a pressure that Kara could pretend to ignore if she wished, but she doesn’t, she doesn’t wish that, and she steps forward to wrap her arms around Cat’s shoulders. Cat’s arms slide around her waist, pressing against her back, her fingers at the base of her wing joints, and Kara lets her wings curve around them. 

Cat says nothing. There is nothing to be said. 

What Kara needs is this, this press of bodies, this curve of arms, this physical reassurance that Cat is alive, that she’s okay, that she’s not dead because of something that Kara did when she couldn’t stop herself. 

It is there, with her face pressed against Cat’s shoulder, breathing her in, that Kara remembers that Astra referred to Cat as  _her human_. It is a startling, earth tilting thought. 

But Kara thinks that Astra had it wrong, really. 

Cat doesn’t belong to her. 

But with every inch of her aching for this physical touch, with the feathers of her wings trembling like they are reaching for wings that are not there, Kara thinks that maybe, she belongs to Cat. 

 

~ ~ ~

 

When Non finds her, Astra is not surprised. She knew it was coming, really, knew that at some point his telepaths would pick her up, that perhaps he would find her with their shared enhanced powers, and that it was only a matter of time. 

He knocks Alex aside easily when he lands on the roof next to her, and Kara looks momentarily torn between defending her or going towards her sister. Astra extends her hand out, and flicks her fingers. ‘Help Alex, Little One’. 

She turns towards Non without waiting to see if Kara has moved. Non remains suspended above the ground, his dark wings beating slowly to keep him above her. It is a blatant display of the advantage he has over her, of the power she will never have. The edges of his feathers are tinged red, like they’ve been soaked in blood. She can’t count the number of times she’s wondered whether she should have seen that as a warning of what he would become. 

With the sun behind him, his face is shadowed, but he looks exactly how she remembers, all harsh lines and shadowed eyes. ‘Wife’, he says, and she feels the anger that stirred within her when he knocked Alex towards the edge of the roof spike. She is his General, and if he had any respect for her, he would address her as such, first. 

She tries not to think of how she ended up in that cell, and his role in it. If she thinks of that now, she will lash out, and she almost wants to hear what he has to say, because he is clearly here to talk, or he would have attacked her without warning her of his presence. ‘Lieutenant’, she says cooly. 

‘I am surprised at you,  _General_. We haven’t heard from you since your release’. 

‘My release?’ she snaps, her spine straightening, venom leaking into her voice. ‘Is that what you call it?’ 

Non frowns, and shakes his head. ‘You should not be angry, General, that we were unable to facilitate your escape. You gave yourself up to save our troops, and our cause. It was a risk, but one you understood well. I regret that we could not find you, wife’, he says it like he’s trying to remind her of who she is, as if he has a claim to her, as if the fact that he is her husband will influence what comes next at all, ‘but do not let your anger cloud your judgement’. 

‘Do you think I’m a fool, Non?’ she snarls, staring at his face, refusing to let her eyes be drawn to the expanse of his wings. ‘These people found me. These _humans_ , however weak and pathetic and selfish we may have thought them to be, found me. And they did not have any of our telepaths’. She takes a step towards him, and she can feel the anger building inside her, strengthening her words, hardening like a second skin around her. She wants to lash out, to burn him with her eyes, because he left her there, he left her because of his own ambitions. She wonders whether he ever really cared about saving this world. 

‘They  _are_ weak, Astra. How can you align yourself with these people? Are you not still fighting for our cause?’ There is anger in his voice now, and oh, she’d forgotten how quickly he turned to that emotion. 

‘ _Our_ cause, Non? You left me to rot in a dungeon and you still call it  _our_ cause?’ She feels angrier than she has in a long time, as if everything that she’s tried to contain, all the anger that she had to keep down in those five years in that cell has come surging to the surface, and she has someone deserving to direct it at. ‘Do not tell me that you could not find the facility. Do not claim that you did not know how to release me. I escaped with the help of a single human,  _husband_ ’. She scoffs, her lips pulling in a sneer. ‘If Agent Danvers could do what your people could not, perhaps you should fear what she could do to your entire army’. 

Non’s jaw tightens, but he appears to gather himself. ‘And so you abandon the cause? You’ll leave this world to its fate?’

It takes her a moment to work out why he is persisting, why he seems to be trying to restrain his anger. When she does, she can’t help the dry laugh that escapes her lips. ‘Oh, of course. The last stage of the Myriad Project. You need me to activate it’. 

She watches his hands clench and unclench, and the smile that curves her lips is as mocking as her voice. ‘You didn’t think that I’d leave a weapon like that unmonitored? Able to be accessed by anyone?’

‘Did you not trust me, General?’ 

She feels any humour drain from her. She sighs heavily. ‘Perhaps I did once, Non. But that time is long gone. I left Myriad guarded. I did not know whether you would retain control in my absence’. Her anger spikes again, rolling over her in a wave. ‘I did not know that you would abandon me to the dark, I did not -’ 

‘You can get your wings back, Astra’. 

Whatever she was saying, whatever insults she was about to throw at him, die as suddenly as a snuffed candle flame. It is like the suddenness of Krypton’s destruction, but it is silent. She feels like the words are stuck there, in her throat, choking her and making it hard to breathe. Her shoulders rise, tense and defensive, as if he poses a threat to her, this false hope she can hear like a promise in the air. ‘What?’ she breathes, and she sounds pathetically small, like a child who has been offered a treat that they think will be taken from them. 

‘After we became aware of your escape, and that you’d had your wings taken from you again, I had our troops capture one of the high ranking officers in that facility. We know why your wings haven’t regrown’. There is something like pity in his expression, something like sorrow behind his anger, because he knows the trauma, the pain, of losing one’s wings. He went through it. He has a better idea of what it means to lose them twice than anyone else. 

She doesn’t want his pity. Astra licks her lips, and snaps, ‘and I don’t suppose you’ll share that information?'

Non tilts his head, a very faint smile flittering about his mouth. He looks triumphant. ‘I will’, he says, and her throat goes dry. ‘But you must see sense, first. Rejoin us, General. Return to our cause, to our true purpose, and I will show you how to regain your wings’. 

He is offering a choice, a choice that is life altering, a choice that shakes her core. He hovers there in the air, his wings beating slowly and evenly to keep him in the same position, his hand held out to her, like he already knows that she’s made up her mind. The beat of his wings sends warm air rushing across the distance towards her, sending her hair billowing about her, and for a moment, she imagines what it would be like to fly again, without assistance, to feel the strength of her wings as she navigated the air currents of this young, wondrous world. 

It is a choice. Her wings, or Kara. 

She glances at her niece, at her Little One, at the one good thing in her life, at the girl she loves with every fibre of her damaged being, standing there with her wings spread wide, shielding Alex, Alex who has been kind to her, who has been an anchor in the storm, who she trusts, and they are both looking at her with something like devastation. Kara looks terrified, as if she’s afraid that she’ll step forward and take her husband’s hand, but there is something else behind the terror. It is compassion and understanding and resignation, as if Kara would forgive her for this betrayal, because she knows how much she longs for her wings. 

Alex’s expression is a little different. There is a plea in her eyes, behind the devastation, but her jaw is set, as if this woman, this strange, brave human who has fought for her when she didn’t need to, has faith that she won’t do it. That despite how much she longs for her wings, she will not leave them, she will not betray the person she has discovered she can still be.

A choice. Kara, or her wings. 

It is the easiest decision she has ever made in her life. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew this one was hard to write. I'm more unsure, I guess you could say, about writing the Cat/Kara scenes. They're such a beautiful relationship and I really hope I've done it justice, here. 
> 
> quickly, about the Myriad, I just find it a bit hard to believe that Astra didn't have any safeguards? Like, Alura tells Kara that it could be used to take over hundreds of worlds and I don't think Astra would have left something so dangerous able to be accessed by anyone? Like, obviously, in canon, she doesn't think that she's going to die, she thinks she'll be there the whole time, but in this story she wouldn't give herself up and leave it unguarded. 
> 
> As to her giving herself up, if I didn't make it clear, she did it as a strategic thing, without having any idea of how awful the consequences would be. 
> 
> btw, if anyone wants to discuss why I've made Kara's wings white, and Non's so dark, feel free to! here or on tumblr i don't mind. Its not as simple as 'Kara's Good, Non's Evil'. 
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed, and suggestions are always welcome! :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

>   
>  remember the truth that once was spoken,  
> to love another person is to see the face  
> of god  
> 

Astra tilts her chin up, takes a deep breath, and says, ‘no’. 

 

_No._

The word rings out, bursting from her lips like crack of a whip, like the echo of a gun shot, and she feels a thrill, at this defiance, a thrill, at this decision, because she has never felt so justified, never felt so  _right_ in a decision. 

 

Kara or her wings. It was never really a choice, was it?

 

Non’s entire expression changes, and she sees the way his wings tilt, shifting his body forward, and so when he lunges at her, his face contorted in a snarl, she is ready. She jerks to the side and drops to her stomach to avoid him, rolling up and into a crouch, and shooting lasers from her eyes to intercept his own. 

 

‘You will regret this decision, wife!’

 

Astra throws every insult she knows in kryptonian at him, and she is filled with a sense of satisfaction so thrilling that she laughs, a cruel, violent sound that almost hurts as it tears from her throat. 

 

Non dives, skimming low across the roof, and strikes her hard in the chest, knocking her across the roof. She digs her feet in to halt her speed before she hits the edge of the roof, but then Kara is there, a flash of white and gold and red, crashing into Non with a roar of outrage, of anger, and Astra feels a flash of pride. 

 

Non grabs at Kara’s neck, his fingers twisting her head up, and jerks his head to the side, searing a path of scorching heat across the roof, towards where Alex is standing, speaking quickly into her phone. Astra turns sharply with a warning bursting from her tongue, just in time to see Alex leap back to avoid the blast. 

 

Right over the edge of the roof. 

 

In all her years on Earth, Astra has never experienced a level of terror as high as the one she feels now. 

 

It does not freeze her, it does not make her muscles seize up. 

 

Instead, it fuels her. She moves faster than she has in years, faster than she has ever needed to, because the consequences of not moving, of not saving Alex, are more horrible than she can imagine. 

 

She forgets, in that moment, when she throws herself off the roof with Kara’s horrified scream ringing in her ears, her arms snapped close to her sides to accelerate her fall, that she doesn’t have wings. 

 

She grabs at Alex, and she doesn’t have time to think, really, because they are moving too fast and Alex is so fragile and breakable, despite her strength, and Astra has this horrible image of the woman smashing against the pavement, breaking apart like a porcelain doll, and she can’t speak, she doesn’t have time to think further than  _save her_. 

 

She wraps her arms around Alex, spins them, and holds Alex as close to her chest as she can, as tightly as she can, and Alex’s hands are wound tight in her shirt, her face tucked beneath her chin, and then - 

 

They slam into the ground, and  _pain_ slices up her back, rips through her shoulders, and it hurts, it  _hurts_ , and nothing in this world is supposed to hurt her and by Rao, this should not be happening, not right now, not now, she can’t regress back into awful memories that are so real she can taste them, but she opens her eyes and all she sees are white, gleaming walls and sickly green lights. 

 

There are hands on her face, on her shoulders, and for a moment she sees those gloved, military hands, she feels the tight pressure of ruthless fingers on her arms,  _this can end if you tell us what we want to know, General_ , she feels the sting of a needle in her neck and -

 

‘Astra! Astra, can you hear me? Are you okay? Astra!’

 

It is Alex, Alex half lying on top of her, her knee pressed against her ribs, her hands on her face, on her shoulders, and Astra blinks, staring at Alex’s face for a moment, at the way her brow is creased in concern, her bottom lip caught between her teeth, and she stares, and comes back to reality. The white gleam of her cell glows in the corners of her eyes, and then fades. 

 

She raises her hand slowly, and grips Alex’s shoulder. ‘I’m fine’, she is not she is not, the pain in her shoulders is worse than ever, worse than that night in the bathroom, and this weakness is going to get Kara hurt, maybe killed, it nearly got Alex killed, she feels so  _useless_. ‘Where is Kara?’

 

‘Fighting Non’. Alex’s hands are still on her face, finger tips at the hinge of her jaw, ‘I’m going to call for backup, okay?’

 

Astra nods, and Alex lets go of her, sitting up beside her, and Astra suddenly becomes aware of the commotion around them, of the bystanders, their faces tilted up to the heavens to watch her niece fight her husband in the heavens. 

 

  
_Idiots_ , she thinks,  _they’re going to get themselves killed._  


She rolls slowly onto her stomach, gritting her teeth against the pain in her shoulders, pushing past it by sheer force of will, the kind that saved her from spilling her secrets under torture, and staggers to her feet. ‘Get back!’ she shouts, and all heads turn to stare, and so she reaches up and tears the buttons of her shirt open, to reveal the cat suit with the embossed red S on the shoulder, and she sees recognition in all their eyes (thankfully she wasn’t wearing her glasses, that her hair was down, at least her cover wasn’t blown) and honestly she still doesn’t understand how they can be fooled so easily. 

 

Non lands on the pavement on the other side of the street, and kicks a car towards them, and oh,  _now_ , the civilians start running. Astra catches the car, and the muscles in her arms tremble, they shake, like the pain in her shoulders is affecting her all over. She sets it down slowly, and turns, looking for Alex, to see her attempting to herd civilians out of the way. 

 

‘Astra!’ Kara soars overhead, spinning to kick Non squarely in the face, her wings flung wide to pull her back, away from his retaliating strike, ‘help Alex get these people to safety!’

 

Astra turns, scanning the area, because Alex has done a very good job at clearing everyone away, but she turns, and her heart seizes. 

 

There is a little girl crouched behind a car, her small face pinched in terror, and Astra sees her at the same moment that Non does. 

 

She moves. She sprints across the road, falls to her knees so that her body is curved around the girl, and takes the blast of heat between her shoulders. It knocks her forward, her head cracking against the car, leaving a dint behind, and her fingers dig into the pavement until it cracks, and she’s aware that the girl is screaming, a high pitched, terrified sound, and she curves her other hand around the girl's shoulder in an attempt to shield her more. 

 

The burning pressure vanishes, and she leans back, finally able to breath, and scoops the girl up in her arms. ‘It’s okay, Small One’, she says, as the child wraps her arms around her neck, legs around her waist, and Astra cups the back of the girl's head to secure her, as she runs, ‘you’re okay’. 

 

The girl whimpers in her ear, and mumbles, ‘are you an angel? Like Supergirl?’ 

 

Astra chuckles slightly, glancing over her shoulder, searching for Kara and Non, but all she sees is a glare of light reflecting off Kara’s blinding, white wings. It tells her that her niece is fine, that she is still fighting, and that warm burst of pride in her heart only grows. ‘No, Small One. But I know a few’. 

 

 

~ ~ ~

 

 

Non gets away, Kara is unharmed, and overall, it is probably the best outcome. 

 

Astra’s shoulders are still burning, but she keeps that to herself. 

 

She retreats to the roof, the little girl clinging to her neck, refusing to let her go. Her name is Emma, and they learn that she wasn’t with her parents when it happened. Kara goes off in search of the girl's parents, and Astra focuses on ensuring that she does not hurt this small, defenceless, breakable human, because her shoulders are twitching, the muscles around her wing joints spasming, and she is terrified about losing control. 

 

She keeps her grip lose, and focuses on the girl's heart beat to steady her, because Alex is no where to be seen, and she needs an anchor. 

 

‘Thank you for saving me’, the girl says suddenly. The girl reminds her of Kara, with her blonde locks and large blue eyes. She is fiddling with the white streak in Astra’s hair, winding it continuously around her small fingers. Astra had never really realised how… fragile these humans are, not until this moment, with a girl perched on her hip, regarding her like she hangs the sun in the sky.  

 

‘You are very welcome, Small One’. 

 

Alex spots Alex approaching them quickly, and she relaxes a bit. The girl turns to follow her gaze, watching Alex’s approach with wide, curious eyes. With the sun beginning to set, casting everything in a warm orange light, Alex’s outline is glowing, a gold haze, a faint halo at the edges of her hair. The girl whispers, ‘is that one of the angels?’ 

 

Astra chuckles softly, but she finds herself thinking of the things that Alex has done, that she saved her from an endless eternity in an enemy base, that she has held her hand to steady her, to help her breathe, that she pressed her hands against her shoulders to stop her muscles from burning. 

 

She thinks about what she knows of angels, in this world’s mythology. Perhaps that is exactly what Alexandra Danvers is. Aren’t angels meant to help people? 

 

‘Yes, Small One’, she says softly, confident that she cannot be heard, brushing the dust from the girl’s hair, shifting her grip slightly, ‘that is one of them’. 

 

The girl looks up at Alex when she reaches them, and says, ‘she says that you’re an angel’, her voice high and curious, and Astra’s throat goes very dry, ‘but you don’t have wings either’.

She hears Alex’s heart jump, senses the woman’s tight swallow. She glances at her in her peripheral vision, and even with the sun shining behind her, casting her in an almost silhouette, there is a slight flush to her cheeks. Alex blinks, and then steps closer. ‘Emma, isn’t it?'

 

‘Yes’, the girl says, and she sounds awed, as if she has taken Astra’s words to heart, as an absolute truth. 

 

‘Well, Emma, its quite simple, really’. Alex’s smile is soft and reassuring, directed at the girl in Astra’s arms, but Astra feels the warmth in that smile wash over her as if it is meant solely for her. ‘Not all angels have wings’. 

 

The girl laughs, and squeezes Astra’s neck tightly. ‘See! You’re one too!’

 

Astra smiles, wonderfully endeared by this small girl. That soft smile is still lingering about Alex’s mouth, and she says, ‘Supergirl found your parents, Emma. She’ll take you to them when you’re ready’. 

 

Kara drops out of the air beside Alex, and the girl squeals. She wriggles in Astra’s arms, and so Astra drops her gently to the ground. Before the girl runs to Kara, she grabs Astra’s hand, and tugs her down. Astra bends, and the girl kisses her cheek quickly. Astra lets her smile grow. ‘Thank you’. 

 

Astra cups the back of the girl's head, and presses a kiss to her forehead. ‘Live well, Small One’. 

 

The girl leaps up into Kara’s arms, and Kara launches them up into the air with one, strong beat of her wings. Astra watches them go, and tries to ignore the phantom sensation in her wing joints. Her smile fades, a quirk at the corner of her mouth that feels more like a grimace, and she drops her gaze to Alex’s face. She wonders whether she will ever get used to this, to being half whole. 

 

Alex is watching her with a faint frown creasing her brow, genuine concern shining in her eyes. She doesn’t bring up the angel comment. Instead, she says, ‘are you okay?’

 

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

 

Her frown deepens. ‘Are you forgetting that you threw yourself off a building to save me?’

 

‘Are you forgetting that I cannot be harmed?’

 

‘And yet you went limp’. Alex sighs, shifting slightly closer to her, and uncrossing her arms. ‘You didn’t respond to anything I was saying, for a good sixty seconds. It was… troubling’. 

 

Astra sighs. She takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly. ‘Its just… the muscles around my wings hurt sometimes, as you know. Sometimes… I cannot explain what triggers my episodes, Alex. But the memory of the pain is always as… strong as if it was real’. She shakes herself, a twitch of her shoulders, and takes another deep breath. ‘Are you alright?’

 

Alex sighs, and shakes her head slightly. ‘A bit shaken up, but fine’. She stares at Astra for a moment, that frown deepening into something severe, but the look in her eyes is almost thoughtful. ‘You said that you trust me, Astra. Would you… would you trust me to run some tests?’

 

‘Tests?’ 

 

‘There might be… more than a psychological reason for why you keep getting pain in your shoulders. I’d like to try and find out, if you let me’.

 

Astra presses her lips into a thin line, and grinds her teeth together to bite back a knee jerk response. She doesn’t know if she can go back under the needle, again, if she can put herself in another person’s hands. But this is Alex, the brave one, the person who rescued her from a cell, the person she trusts. An angel, as far as she is concerned. ‘Alright, Alex’. 

 

Alex reaches out, and curls her fingers around Astra’s forearm. The pressure is slight, not restricting, not forceful, a reassurance and a comfort more than anything. The tension drains from her, and her smile feels easy. 

 

Alex drops her hand, and her smile changes, a glint of amusement shining her eyes. There is a mocking lilt to her voice that Astra quite likes, when she says, ‘so, I’m an angel, am I?’

 

Astra shifts uncomfortably, and bites her bottom lip while she tries to think of what to say, of how to word it. She does not miss the way Alex’s eyes flick down. ‘Is that not the truth of your mythologies? Angels help people? Save people? You’ve certainly done that’. 

 

The smirk slips from Alex’s face, and that faint blush colours her cheeks. She shakes her head, but before she can respond, Kara drops out of the sky. Kara steps forward and tugs Astra into her embrace, holding her tightly. Astra sighs, and lets herself sag against her niece, just for a moment. Kara holds her tightly, and Astra forces herself not to react to how close her niece’s hands are to her wing joints. They still ache, still burn, and anything resting so close simply feels like a threat. 

 

‘That can’t have been easy’, Kara whispers, the kryptonian words filling the silence, and Astra lets her fingers trail up, brushing her hands softly through Kara’s feathers. 

 

She is silent for a moment, stroking Kara’s wings, but then she chuckles softly. ‘Quite the contrary, Little One’. 

 

Kara pulls away, frowning faintly. Astra smooths her hand through Kara’s hair, and says, ‘there is nothing in the world left that I would give you up for. I love you, Little One. And swore to myself that I would never lose you again. Nothing is worth that agony’. 

 

‘But your wings -’ 

 

‘My wings are gone, Little One. And I will… I do not believe that is something I will ever get past. But getting them back, for the price of losing you? It wasn’t even a question’. 

 

Kara’s mouth twists, and she blinks rapidly, her eyes gleaming. ‘Oh, Astra’, she says softly, pulling her back into an embrace, ‘I love you so much’. 

 

‘I love you too, Little One’. 

 

In the long silence that follows, Astra turns her head, her chin still resting on Kara’s shoulder. Alex is standing off to the side, her arms folded, watching them with an expression of intense fondness and affection, and when she meets her eyes, a flicker of warmth, of something that might be pride, shines in her eyes. Astra remembers the way Alex had looked at her, with faith, like she knew the answer to Non’s question even before Astra said it. 

 

Kara is Astra’s light in the darkness, and Alex is her anchor. She has known that for a while. She knowns that she has been irrevocably changed by these two women who she trusts with her life, who she would throw herself in front of any obstacle for. 

 

She doesn’t understand what she feels for Alex. Not really. She knows that she feels  _something,_ something similar to the way she feels about Kara, but it is different, so different, but Astra doesn’t have a reference, a memory for this, and so she feels lost. 

 

But they are part of her, these two people. She knows that much. She knows it in her bones. 

 

And so with one arm still wrapped around Kara’s back, standing in her tight, secure embrace, she stretches out her other hand for Alex to take. 

 

It feels like reaching out across the expanse of space, with no tether to keep her still. 

 

Alex looks momentarily stunned, but after a pause, she steps forward, and grasps Astra’s hand. 

 

Kara’s wings unfurl then, as if she was entirely aware of what Astra was doing, and she curls one close around Astra’s back, and as Astra pulls Alex closer, the other folds behind her, pressing her close. Alex lets go of Astra’s hand, and wraps it around her waist, her face pressed into her hair. 

 

The three of them stand there in an embrace of feathers and warmth and affection, and Astra closes her eyes and listens to the thump of their heartbeats, and the burn in her shoulders, the pain in her ruined wing joints, fades into non-existence. 

 

It is a moment of peace, the eye of the storm, perhaps. Astra focuses on Kara and Alex, and doesn’t let herself wonder what about what will come next, about Myriad and scarifies she can see looming on the horizon, about this war they have been silently waging that will soon explode into conflict. 

 

For now, in this moment, there is nothing beyond warmth and feathers, and a level of peace that she has never known. 

 

 

~ ~ ~

 

 

Astra tells them about Myriad, and Kara feels such an intense sense of impending doom that her wings extend out wide, as if sensing an immediate attack. They tremble, as if they are under great strain. 

 

She sees the guilt flash in Astra’s eyes, the shame twist her mouth down, and so she reaches for her and squeezes her hand tightly. ‘Why did Non need you, to activate it?’ Kara asks, tightening her grip as much as she can, because she doesn’t want Astra to think that she blames her for this. 

 

Astra sighs heavily, and runs a hand through her hair. She looks haunted. ‘I coded the activation sequence to my DNA, Little One. He needs my blood to finish it’. 

 

Dread curls low in Kara’s stomach. She knows what that means. She knows that now, Astra has a target on her back, and every alien at Non’s disposal will be after her. She takes a deep breath to steady herself, and says firmly, ‘well then, he won’t get it’. 

 

Astra sighs. ‘If he does, there will be no stopping it’, she warns, and the guilt in her eyes is growing. ‘This world will be lost’. 

 

Kara leans forward, and takes Astra’s face in her hands. She stares at her for a long moment, and then says forcefully. ‘Astra, he  _won’t_ get it. I won’t let him’.  

 

And that, for Kara, is that. She leaves Astra at the DEO with Hank and Alex, to discuss ways of destroying Myriad before it even has a chance to be activated, and goes straight to Cat. 

 

As always, Cat knows instantly that there is something wrong. 

 

She takes one look at Kara’s face, and the faint smirk, the playful expression, a flirtatious look that always begins their conversations, vanishes. She steps closer immediately, like she instinctively knows that Kara craves the physical proximity. 

 

Kara licks her lips, and tilts her head up towards the sun, as if she can draw strength from its warmth. She takes a deep breath, and lets it out slowly. ‘If I told you to take Carter and get somewhere safe… if I told you to run, would you?’

 

Cat steps even closer to her, their arms brushing together, frowning severely. ‘What is going on, Kara?’

 

‘We… we know that the Fort Rozz aliens are doing, now. And we know what will happen if they succeed. If they…’ she swallows tightly. ‘They’ve built a system that, when activated will… everyone will be under their control, Cat. You’ll all lose your freedoms. You won’t have control and you won’t be able to stop yourself from doing whatever they want you to. I… I can’t let that happen. For more reason than one’.

 

‘Then you will find a way to stop it, just as you always have’. 

 

‘But what if I fail, Cat? What if I can’t stop them? Cat -’ She turns, and stares at Cat, gnawing on her bottom lip, stretching her hand out to touch her arm. Her wings curve forwards, reaching, just as always, towards this woman, to protect her, to shield her, to draw strength from her. ‘You need to go, just incase I fail’. 

 

Cat stares at her for a moment. Then she steps closer, close enough that Kara could count the number of the woman’s eyelashes if she wanted, and Kara feels the tightness in her chest ease a little, at the close proximity. ‘Kara’, she says, and her voice is firm and unyielding, ‘you once told me that this job kept you grounded. That  _I_ kept you grounded’.

 

Kara swallows tightly. She wonders what would happen if she reached out, and took Cat’s hands in her own. ‘I meant it’. 

 

‘I know, Kara. So I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to tell me the truth. Don’t think about my safety. Don’t think about what you should do. Just answer’.

 

Kara nods. She almost smiles, because she knows this, taking orders from Cat Grant, and she feels some of the tension drain from her shoulders. She breathes more easily. Cat tilts her head, and leans forward slightly, tilting her body so that her hip presses against Kara’s side. ‘Do you need me, now?’ 

 

Kara feels her throat tighten, her heart twist, and oh, oh she should say no, she should tell Cat to pack her bags and leave, to get to safety, she should tell her to run. But she opens her mouth, and despite what she knows she should say, what comes out is, ‘yes’, and oh, maybe the instinct to tell Cat the truth has become ingrained in her bones. 

 

Cat’s expression softens, and it is Cat who reaches for her hands. ‘Then I will stay, Kara’. 

 

‘Cat -’ 

 

‘If what you’re saying is true, if this system gets up and running, then running will not keep us safe, Kara. The whole world could fall. Perhaps you are our only hope at stopping it. If that is true, I would rather stay here, and keep you grounded, and  _help_ you, than run’. 

 

Kara stares at her for a long moment. She stare at her, and she wants to say,  _god Cat, I think I might love you, god, do you realise what you are, who you are, do you realise how extraordinary you are?_  


She wants to say,  _you deserve the name Supergirl far more than me._  


 

She wants to say,  _if you think that I am your angel, then I think that you might be my god._  


 

Oh Rao, there are so many things she wants to say. 

 

There are so many things she wants to do. 

 

But instead she reaches out, and clasps Cat’s hand. She lifts Cat’s hand, and presses her lips to woman's fingers. She watches the way every last hint of hardness and severity, of concern and stress, drains from Cat’s eyes. She takes a deep breath, and says, ‘thank you _,_ Cat’. 

 

Cat lifts her other hand, and clasps Kara’s hand. The tips of her fingers rest against Kara’s chin. ‘I have faith in you, Kara. You will stop this. I believe that’. 

 

  
_I have faith in you_. 

 

Kara thinks that maybe she could take on Non with nothing more than Cat’s faith filling her, turning her insides gold. 

 

_If I am your angel, then you are my god._

One day, she might let those words spill into the air between them, she might give substance to the weight, to the tension, that draws her ever closer to the woman. 

 

But for now, she stands there with Cat’s hands curled around her own, and lets herself believe that she will save her. 

 

That she will save Alex and Astra, and James and Lucy and Hank and Winn. 

 

That she will save everyone. 

 

 

~ ~ ~

 

 

  
_Are you an angel?_ The child had asked, with wide eyes and awed words, and Astra had said no, and she’d meant it. 

 

Alex had said that not all angels had wings, but that wasn’t the point. 

 

There are things that she doesn’t really understand about this world’s mythology concerning angels, but there are two things she knows, without a doubt. 

 

Kara is an angel. 

 

But she herself is not. Even when she had wings, she wasn’t an angel. She thinks about all the things she has done, all the things she excused, and the world she failed to save. She thinks about how Alura said that there were no excuses for them, and that she was right. 

 

Maybe she is more like the fallen angels in these mythologies. Those that chose a path that led to them being cast out, led to their pain and suffering and death, and the loss of their wings. 

 

It has nothing to do with wings. It is to do with the soul. Kara’s soul is the soul of an angel, Astra’s is not. 

 

But Alex’s is. 

 

She’d told the child that Alex was an angel, and she’d added another, irrefutable truth to the things she understood about angels. 

 

She wonders what Alex’s wings would look like. She knows that they would be beautiful. 

 

She dreams about feathers, about wings that press in around her, mirroring the arms that wrap around her waist. Her shoulders still burn, in those dreams, and she knows that she is not dreaming of her own wings. 

 

Astra lets Alex run her tests. She’s not really sure why she does it, but she feels that she owes the woman in ways that she cannot repay, and she has no idea what she is looking for, for this thing that cannot be described by psychology, or memories. She lets Alex run her tests, and it is not as cold or as clinical as she expects it to be. 

 

Alex’s hands are always on her skin, when she runs her tests, even when it is clear that they don’t need to be touching. She is careful and considerate and sometimes she pauses and looks at her and says,  _is this still okay?_ and Astra thinks that she might love her for it. 

 

It nearly makes her trip over her own feet, when that thought first enters her mind. She doesn’t know how to love anyone. She’s never really known love, not really, not aside from Kara (because she loves Kara with everything she is) and the way she feels towards Alex is entirely different to the way she feels about her niece. 

 

She doesn’t know if she has enough room in her heart to love both of them, to love anyone in the way she thinks she might love Alex, and it frightens her.

 

She doesn’t know what Alex is looking for, but there is a strange, tentative intimacy in the air between them, and Astra wonders if she’s not alone in her feelings. It is a wonderful, nerve wracking thought, one that she doesn’t want to push, she doesn’t want to find out she’s wrong, and so she savours the enjoyment she finds in the touch of Alex’s hands, and she doesn’t ask. 

 

They train together, too, and that is a different kind of intimacy, a different kind of attraction, a heat that spikes low in her belly when their bodies move together in that room where she is just as breakable as any human. 

 

It was Alex’s idea, really, because they both know what Astra is up against, now, they both know that Non will do whatever he has to do to get her DNA, that he will come after her with all his gathered strength, and Astra can’t take them all on own her own. They train, because it has been five years since Astra last needed to fight someone, five years since she had a chance to, and muscle memory can only serve her so well. 

 

Alex is good, she learns very quickly. It is impressive, her strength and speed, and Astra, despite having never underestimated the woman, is still surprised when Alex blocks her arm, grabs her wrist, spins to step in close, and flips her. 

 

She lands hard on her back with Alex’s hand curved lightly around her throat, and the younger woman is smirking. ‘Is that really all you’ve got, General?’ she asks, and Astra decides that she quite likes the way Alex’s lips twist up when she smirks. 

 

She tries harder, after that. 

 

Their sessions never last long. Astra’s wing joints start to burn, after a while, and the kryptonite always makes her feel ill, thrown and trapped, like the walls are going to close in, like they are going to change, and she’ll find herself back in that horrible limbo that Alex rescued her from. 

 

Alex, ever observant, ever considerate, ever so, so kind, stops their sessions. She stops them, because she knows that Astra won’t, that no matter how many times Alex and Kara tell her that it is not a weakness, she will always see it as one. 

 

She stops them, and she takes Astra’s hand, and leads her from the facility. They walk the twisting corridors of the DEO until they reach a side exit, and Astra will always feel better with the sun warming her skin. They sit, side by side with the desert rolling away before them, and even though they do not have time for such indulgences, for silence and inactivity with everything that is happening, they stay there. 

 

Sometimes they talk, though it is mainly Alex who does the talking. She talks about Kara, about her childhood, and if she notices that Astra begins to ask more questions about Alex herself than Kara, Alex doesn’t mention it. Astra wants to know everything there is to know about Kara, but she wants that from Alex, too. And Alex will never volunteer information about herself unless prompted. She seems to find it easier to talk about her sister’s achievements, than her own, and Astra wonders if its because she considers herself to be less than Kara. She doesn’t know how to tell her that that is not true. 

 

Sometimes, in the evening, as the sun sets, painting the sky a deep orange that reminds Astra painfully of Krypton, of home, she tells Alex about the world that has been lost to her. She tells her about the spires of the great cities, about the colours that this world has never seen, about Kara, before the end. She tells her about the worlds that she visited (invaded, conquered, explored, loved), and she watches the wonder shine in Alex’s eyes. 

 

She tells her about a planet with oceans so deep they extended down to a thick, single crust protecting the planet’s core. She tells her that Earth’s stories of mermaids are a remarkable description of the inhabitants on that planet, majestic creatures with powerful, scaly, colourful tails, and smiles so sharp they could cut. She tells her about what it was like to swim there, about the weight of the water in her feathers and the way the waves rippled over her skin.

 

She tells her about a planet where everything was gigantic, huge people whose footfalls shook the very earth, who her unit first mistook them for mountains, when they arrived to find one of them deep in slumber. She tells her about the trees that towered into the sky, extending to high into the heavens that she couldn’t see their tops, that she couldn’t reach them when she extended her wings and launched into the heavens, about lakes so wide that she couldn’t see the opposite bank. She’d never felt so small in her life, and yet there had been something remarkably beautiful about how insignificant she’d been, in comparison to everything else. 

 

She tells her about a planet of fierce, intelligent creatures, creatures that she has once again seen in Earth’s legends, beasts with huge, scaly wings that breathed fire and ice. Dragons, they are called here, and something lights up in Alex’s eyes when she tells her about that, as if the thought that somewhere in the universe, these tales are true brings her a sense of great pleasure. She tells her about flying, with those dragons, twisting to avoid their claws and the spurts of numbing cold and scorching heat that they would let lose, a sign of joy, a sign of power, and she tells Alex about how exhilarating that had been, to feel the rumble of ancient laughter in her bones. 

 

She tells Alex about these worlds that exist, far out among the stars, and even though she always had her wings, then, the memories do not hurt her. They were happier days, happier times, when she could return home and share her stories of wonder with Kara, when Alura would sit opposite them with love and pride gleaming in her eyes. There is a sense of wistfulness to them, but Astra is used to raw, blind pain, and this gentle is ache does not really hurt her. 

 

She tells her about Alura, once. She tells Alex about her sister, her good, kind hearted sister with wings of darkness. She tells Alex about how she defended her sister, when they were children, when they were growing up, from those that were afraid of the shadows extending from her shoulder blades. She tells her about the nickname she was given later in life,  _the Angel of Death_ , and that those who gave her that did not quite understand that Alura would embrace it, rather than cower. She tells Alex that Alura’s wings were black, a deep black that seemed to swallow the world, and that when she unfurled them, she could make men cower. Alura walked around with darkness hanging from her shoulders, but it was not a sign that she was evil, that she was dangerous. It was a sign that Alura would always put herself between that darkness, that horror in some men’s souls, and those that needed protection. She would always do whatever she had to do, to protect the weak and the innocent from those that would abuse them. She would fight fire with fire, if she had to, she would take the torment and horror and sorrow from the innocent and bear it herself, if she had to, and she would prevail. She was good and kind and loving, but she was not weak. She could make the hard decisions. She could be ruthless and uncompromising, because there was a no tolerance policy on Krypton, and Alura did not forgive. She condemned. 

 

Astra loved her sister, for her fierce resolution to protect, whatever the cost to herself. She loved her sister for her heart, for her kindness that was mistaken as something else. She loved her sister, for her conviction and passion and the way she looked into the darkness in men’s hearts, and destroyed it. 

 

Astra loves her sister, still, despite everything. She never thought she’d be on the receiving end of that unflinching justice, but that doesn’t mean that she deserved any less. 

 

Sometimes, they do not speak at all. They sit there with their hands intertwined, and listen to the silence, and Astra tries not to think about the fact that she might be in love with this strange, brave human who has held her hand through everything. 

 

It is at times like that, these soft moments of sunlight and serenity in the midst of a storm, with Alex sitting quietly by her side, that Astra’s longing for her wings increases until it burns the back of her mouth. 

 

She wishes that she could take Alex flying.

 

And it is a wish that she knows will never be granted. 

 

 

~ ~ ~

 

 

Non reveals himself, and three weeks later, everything spirals out of control. 

 

Kara wakes up from her time under the Black Mercy to the embrace of Alex’s arms, to Cat’s face looming over her, and discovers that in her absence, Astra was ambushed by the men who were once her loyal supporters, and it is only Hank’s timely intervention that kept them from killing her. But they got what they needed, when Non stabbed her in the stomach, and twisted until she bled. 

 

They got her DNA. There is nothing, now, to stop them from activating Myriad. Nothing but Kara and her family and friends, and Kara feels like she’s tumbling in free fall. 

 

She has never felt failure as acutely as she does when she rushes into the Medical Bay to find her aunt alive but horrifically pale beneath warm, yellow lights. They don’t know how long it will take her to recover enough to fight (she’s going to be up and walking within a day, Kara can tell, even though it is not a good idea, because Astra looks panicked and trapped in the Medical Bay, and they will not be able to keep her there), and without her, any hope of stopping Myriad seems futile. 

 

Astra looks at her with intense guilt burning in her eyes when she wakes,  _I am so sorry, Little One_ , she says, like it is her fault, not Kara’s, that she’s been stabbed by kryptonite again, that she’s hooked up to machines in a facility that obviously makes her feel threatened, like it is her fault, not Non’s, that Kara had to lose her mother and her father and her whole world, all over again. 

 

By Rao she’d missed them, her parents, her world, her mother with her black wings whose darkness might be frightening to some, but whose feathers were the softest she’s ever known, softer than hers, softer than Astra’s, soft like Alura’s heart, and her father, with his pale, almost translucent feathers, who always looked at her with pride no matter what she did, even if it was nothing. She’d missed them, so, so much, missed the love in her mother’s eyes and the way her wings would curl around and over her, smoothing her in darkness that made her feel safe, safe in a way that she has never felt since, not really, not since her mother died in Krypton’s implosion. 

 

There is rage bubbling low in Kara’s gut, a kind of rage that she has never known, nothing like the blind thing that fuelled her once before, that could be traced back to her feelings about her home world and her mother and this intense feeling of being alone, sometimes. No, this rage is different. It is molten and unforgiving, and it is directed at one person, and one person only. 

 

She has never wanted anyone dead before. She wants it, now. 

 

It is who Cat stops her, Cat, who asked her if she was what Kara needed, and she had been right, so right, because she puts her hands on Kara’s shoulders, and it is the expression in her eyes, this half hidden terror that tells Kara how scared Cat truly was, that keeps her there. That keeps her grounded. It makes her focus on something else, something physical and real, and infinitely more precious than her desire for revenge. 

 

She lets Cat pull her into a tight embrace. She lets herself collapse forward, but she cups the back of Cat’s head and pulls her closer, giving her the comfort and protection that Cat has always offered her. 

 

They don’t speak. It is not the first time one of them has nearly died, since this strange, fragile  _maybe_ sprung into being between them, since Kara began to understand that she might be in love with Cat Grant, that she might have been for a while, and like all those other times, there is nothing to say. 

 

The physical comfort is enough, for a time. 

 

She breaks it by saying, ‘what are you doing here?’

 

Cat chuckles softly, her face hidden in Kara’s hair. ‘Three weeks ago you told me that you might be all that stood between your uncle and world domination. When you didn’t turn up for work, I went to investigate myself. Your sister let me come along’. 

 

‘And Hank didn’t make you leave?’

 

Cat scoffs. ‘He didn’t dare try’.

 

Kara sighs heavily. She wants to stay there forever, with her wings wrapped around Cat, with Cat’s warm breath fluttering her hair. She wants to, and yet, she can’t. She needs to check on Astra, again, she needs to find Alex (she can’t believe that she nearly forgot her sister, in that dream world, but she is not surprised that Alex saved her. That is what Alex does), and she needs to find a way to make sure that Cat will be safe, when all this begins. 

 

‘I need to… I need to check on Alex and Astra. They… they went through a lot when I was out’. 

 

‘It was not your fault, Kara’. 

 

Kara closes her eyes, and takes a deep breath. She lets it out slowly, and tells herself to believe Cat. To listen to her. She is good at that. 

 

She feels a bit better, once she has repeated Cat’s words several times, and when she turns her head and presses her lips to Cat’s temple, she does it without thinking, without pausing to consider the ramifications of that decision, and she only realises what she has done when she steps back, out of the circle of Cat’s arms, and sees the expression on her face. 

 

She’s never seen that expression before. 

 

It does something to her, to her gut, to her legs, it makes her feel like she might fall. 

 

(She thinks that Cat would be there to catch her). 

 

She leaves Cat with a promise to be back as soon as possible, to take her back to CatCo, even though she wants to insist that Cat stay here, stay where she will be safe, but Cat was right, all those weeks ago. There is no hiding, no running, from what Non is going to do. 

 

Kara walks back towards the Medical Bay, back to Astra, but as she approaches, she hears voices. 

 

‘I was worried that you would not survive, Brave One’. 

 

There is a soft, choked sound, like laughter that is more pained than amused. Alex. ‘I’m surprised you doubted me’. 

 

There is a long pause, and when Astra speaks again, she sounds soft, concerned, and Kara frowns slightly. She’s never heard her aunt speak to Alex like that. ‘Is something wrong, Brave One?’ 

 

Kara hears the tightness in Alex’s voice, the difficulty with which she swallows. ‘I… when I was on Krypton, Astra, I had… I had wings.  _Wings._ And I do not… I do not understand why. I know that world was a product of Kara’s imagination, of her deepest fantasy, but why would I have wings in Kara’s perfect world?’

 

There is a pause. ‘Did you have them, straight away?’

 

‘No’, Alex says, and Kara remembers, suddenly, remembers the moment that realisation had begun to set in, the moment that she’d begun to recognise Alex, and in that moment, the air behind her had shone and glimmered, and when the guards had rushed at her, her wings had become visible, unfurling wide to knock them away from her, and Kara had taken one look at those wings, at the representation of her sister’s soul, and she’d  _remembered._  


 

‘What did they look like?’ Astra is speaking so softly, and Kara wants to use her special vision, she wants to see how her aunt is looking at her sister, because there is something undeniably tender in her voice. 

 

‘They… they were big. They dragged on the ground behind me when I stood still. They were black, I think’. Alex sounds puzzled, and desperately confused, and as Kara focuses, she’s hit with a vivid memory, of her sister’s wings, of how they sparkled like there were a thousand stars contained in their feathers. 

 

Kara has always liked to imagine what people’s wings would look like. It took her two years of knowing Cat, and beginning to fall in love with her, for her to work out that Cat’s wings would be gold, like they would gleam with the light of a thousand suns. 

 

But Kara has known Alex for twelve years. She knows her sister better than she knows herself, really, and she’s known for a long time what Alex’s wings would look like. 

 

‘They… they glittered’, Alex says, stuttering over the description. ‘Like… like looking up at the night sky on a clear night, when theres no pollution, and you can see all the stars’. 

 

‘ _Oh_ ’, Astra sounds breathless and a little awed, and Kara blinks. ‘You carry galaxies in your wings’. 

 

‘Thats… a very poetic way of saying it, I guess. I just… I don’t understand why. Why would Kara want me to have wings? Why would they look like that?’

 

Alex once told Kara that she had resented her, at first, when they were children.  _How could I compete with a girl who could touch the stars?_ she’d said, her eyes gleaming with tears, and oh, Kara had wanted to tell her that she didn’t need to. 

 

She’d wanted to tell Alex that Kara could only reach for the stars. She’d wanted to tell Alex that she was  _made_ of stars, of iron and stardust, of galaxies and nebulas and burning spots of fire and light so bright that it is blinding, that she could spread her wings and they’d be camouflaged against a million twinkling stars, she’d wanted to tell Alex that she’s always tried to carry the world on her shoulders, that she’s always tried to protect people, that her soul is wonderful and generous and so, so beautiful. 

 

Alex has always wanted to protect Kara. 

 

If Alex spread her wings, she would be able to wrap them around Kara entirely, wings and all, and shield her like she has always wanted to, and she’d be able to do it without exposing herself to hurt and danger. She wouldn’t have to save Kara at cost of not being able to protect herself. 

 

In Kara’s perfect, fantasy world, Alex would know her own worth. Her wings would tell her that she is worth so much more than she believes. 

 

‘Did Kara ever tell you that on Krypton, we believed that our wings are a reflection of the soul?’ 

 

‘Yeah, she did’. 

 

‘You save people, Alex. You save people, and you do so with very little regard for your own life. To me, it sounds like your wings were a reflection of that. A deep desire to protect people’. 

 

‘And they were… made of stars, because…?’

 

‘I cannot say exactly. It was Kara’s dream world. But it was a reflection of what we can all see, Alex. Your soul is beautiful’. 

 

Oh Rao _._ Kara has never heard her aunt speak like that, not with that much reverence, and it makes her smile, it makes her heart ache in the most wondrous way, even though she doesn’t quite understand why, yet. 

 

Alex is silent, and Kara wonders what they are doing, where Alex is standing, whether she is closer to Kara, and the door, or Astra, lain out on a medical bed that she will soon insist on leaving. 

 

‘As to why you had them, on Krypton… perhaps Kara’s greatest hope is that one day you will realise how much you matter, to her. How great your worth is’. Astra pauses, and when she speaks again, she sounds reverent. ‘I wish I could have seen them’. 

 

It is astonishing to Kara, sometimes, how well her aunt still knows her, despite all their time apart, how she understands Kara’s wish for Alex to understand her own greatness, how she seems to agree with it, as if it is her own. 

 

There is a long, profound silence, and then Alex says, ‘Astra?'

 

‘Yes, Brave One?’

 

‘When we stop Myriad, we’re going to bring Non in. We’ll find out how to get your wings back. I promise you that’. 

 

Kara feels her stomach lurch, and her heart tightens, because she understands, at that moment, with this conversation ringing in her ears, exactly what is going on between Alex and Astra. 

 

It is a false promise, the thing that Alex just swore. They cannot know that they’ll be able to retrieve Non. They cannot be certain that they’ll be able to make him talk, even if they do. 

 

And Alex never makes false promises. 

 

But in that moment, Kara realises that all Alex wants to do is to reassure Astra that things will get better. That there is still hope for her wings, something that Astra seems to have given up on completely

 

Her suspicions are confirmed when Astra says softly, ‘I believe you, Alex’. 

 

Because they all know that it might be a false hope, and Kara knows that Astra despises such a thing. 

 

And yet, here she is, telling Alex that she believes in a promise she may not be able to keep. 

 

Kara walks away with this knowledge settling heavily on her back, between her wing joints. 

 

She walks away with the knowledge that her aunt and her sister might be in love, and Non wants to take that from them. 

 

She will take everything from him, first, if she has to. 

 

She will kill him, first, if it means protecting them. 

 

She will stop him, whatever it takes. 

 

She will not let him take that love from them. They have suffered enough. 

 

 

~ ~ ~

 

 

Astra returns to Alex’s apartment far earlier than she should, and they both know that, but Astra can’t stay in the DEO for too long, or she starts to get anxious, she starts to remember things she spends so long attempting to avoid. 

 

She really needs to remain in the Medical Bay, under those lights designed to help her heal, but she can’t. She stayed there for one night, and lying there flat on her back with wires and machines and doctors moving around her had been so overwhelming, so horribly familiar, that she’d had a panic attack so violent that she left indentation marks in the table from where her fingers curled around the edges. 

 

They return, and Alex keeps her hand on Astra’s arm to support her, and Astra hasn’t felt this weak since Alex rescued her from her cell, but it is better than the cramped spaces of the DEO. 

 

Alex is so obviously exhausted, by the way she leans back against the door once it swings shut behind them. The woman has been working, almost non-stop, since Non revealed himself, working because their attacks have increased, probably for the whole purpose of keeping them busy in the first place, and now, after this, after willingly subjecting herself to the effects of the Black Mercy, Astra is honestly surprised that Alex hasn’t collapsed yet. 

 

‘You should not… you should sleep tonight, Alex. Do not join me. You need your rest’. 

 

Alex opens one eye, and regards her from beneath her eyelashes. ‘When I stay with you, after your nightmares… does that help you sleep?’

 

‘Sometimes’. It is not exactly a lie. She never sleeps, after the first jerk back to consciousness after those nightmares, but the silence and the sound of Alex’s breathing lulls her into a state of calm, of stillness, that could perhaps be mistaken for dozing. 

 

Alex extends her hand, and Astra takes it, just as she has again and again in the darkness of this apartment. Alex doesn’t speak, but tugs her towards the hall, and Astra doesn’t really realise that she’s being led to Alex’s bedroom until they step through the door. ‘I’m going to end up coming into your room, anyway, Astra. We should both get some sleep’. 

 

Astra thinks about Kara’s interpretation of Alex’s wings, revealed to its full extent under the effects of the Black Mercy, and thinks that her niece could not have been more wrong. She wonders if there is any end to Alex’s generosity, to the things she is willing to do to help people. 

 

They change, and when Astra slides beneath the sheets beside the woman, she listens to the steady thump of Alex’s heart, to reassure herself that the Alex doesn’t regret this decision. 

 

Alex sighs heavily in the dark. ‘Do you ever… worry about where this will lead?’

 

Astra chuckles, but it is not an amused sound. ‘If this ends badly, Alex, it will be my fault. I designed Myriad. I created a tool for world domination. If something happens to Kara, or to you, I will be to blame’. 

 

Alex turns over in the dark, and Astra glances at her. She can see every detail of Alex’s face, because her powers allow her too, but she wonders whether Alex can see anything at all. Alex’s hand slides over hers in the dark, and Astra twines their fingers together automatically. ‘You designed Myriad as a last, desperate attempt to save Krypton, Astra. Yes, building it here wasn’t a last resort, but a quick one. But you did it because you wanted to save this world. You had good intentions. The point is, that you’ve stopped. You cannot blame yourself for things that are no longer in your control’. 

 

Astra sighs. ‘Wise words, Brave One’. 

 

Alex laughs abruptly. ‘I’ve been meaning to say something about that. From angel to Brave One? You do like your nicknames, don’t, General?’

 

‘They are true, nonetheless,  _Alex_ ’. 

 

Alex falls silent. She squeezes Astra’s hand. ‘We’ll get through this, Astra. I promise you that. Non might have taken your DNA, but he won’t take anything else. I won’t let him. And once all this is over… we will live’. 

 

Astra opens her mouth to say that that is exactly what they’re doing now, but shuts it with a snap. She understands exactly what Alex means. She wonders what it might be like to live without fear, fear of losing Kara and Alex, what it might be like to live without wondering if they might die tomorrow. She can’t remember the last time she went through the day without that thought hanging from her shoulders.

 

She falls asleep with Alex’s hand in her own, and thoughts of a world where that weight has lifted. It is a reality that so unbelievable, so impossible, that it feels like a dream. 

 

 

~ ~ ~

 

 

Astra wakes in the morning to the rapid thumb of Alex's heartbeat.

 

Her arm is pillowing Alex's head, and the woman is tucked into the curve of her body, snug and warm, and she fits there, as if they are two pieces of a puzzle. Somehow, their hands are still linked, and she wonders if she has crushed the woman's fingers in her sleep. But it is her other hand that startles her, that has her eyes opening wide despite how desperately she wants to slip back into slumber. 

 

Sometime in the night, perhaps seeking the physical, skin to skin contact that has managed to ground her during the day, her left hand slipped up underneath Alex's shirt, fitted against the curve of her rib cage, just underneath her breast.

 

She can feel Alex's heartbeat thumping rapidly against her hand.

 

She jerks away from Alex like she’s been burned, because she knows what that frantic rhythm means, and she feels physically ill, at the realisation that she has scared the other woman. That she made her feel threatened and unsafe in her own home. Alex scrambles upright to watch her, her eyes wide, and Astra says, ‘I’m… I’m sorry, Alex’, before fleeing, without giving her a chance to respond. 

 

Astra retreats to the spare room (not her room, nothing in this world belongs to her, not anymore) and dresses as quickly as she can, ignoring how dizzy she feels, how much her side burns and aches, how much she feels like she might collapse if she leaves the apartment. She feels a mix of guilt and shame stirring in her throat. She feels like she's betrayed a trust she didn't deserve to be given in the first place, and she needs to get out, to get away, rather than face the possibility of seeing disgust or anger in Alex's eyes. 

 

'Astra'.

 

Alex is standing in the doorway, frowning tightly, and in the early light, with the shadows still dropped across the room, Astra can't see her expression. She swallows tightly, and says quickly, 'I am sorry, Alex. I did not mean to... frighten you'.

 

Alex's frown seems to deepen, and it makes the shadows under her eyes darken. 'Why did you think I was frightened?' 

 

'I could feel your heartbeat, Alex'. Her throat is tight, shame and self disgust churning in her gut. 

 

The frown smooths out, and a look of understanding passes over Alex's face. She walks towards her slowly, and stretches out her hand. Astra takes it hesitantly, and Alex sits beside her, a leg curled beneath her, and shifts her grip to the back of Astra's hand. She pulls her forward a little, and before Astra is really aware of what is happening, she presses their joined hands to her chest, just above her heart. 

 

There is fabric in the way, but the tips of her fingers are resting against Alex's exposed collarbone, and Astra's throat is suddenly very dry. Alex stares at her, her gaze fixed and unyielding, but her mouth is soft. Astra likes the shape of Alex's mouth, the tells she can read from it. She blinks, and meets Alex's eyes again. Alex says, 'what is my heart telling you now?' 

 

Astra takes a deep breath, and focuses, on the sound of the woman's heart, the steady thump beneath her hand. It is slow and steady, an even, regular rhythm, not the frantic staccato of a few moments before. She frowns slightly. 'You are... calm?'

 

'You didn't scare me, Astra'. 

 

Astra only feels more confused, because she felt how frantically the woman's heart was beating, and she knows what that means. 'I don't... I don't understand', she says, and her voice sounds strangely small, uncertain, and Astra would be ashamed, except that she has long given up pretending to ignore how vulnerable this woman has seen her. 

 

Alex shifts forwards, Astra's arm bending so that it presses against her side, and reaches up with her other hand. She cups the back of Astra's head, leans up, and kisses her forehead.

 

Oh. 

 

  
_Oh_. 

 

Astra feels heat rush to her cheeks, embarrassment mixed with something else, because Alex's lips are still pressed to her forehead, soft and warm and lingering, and she can feel the woman's heartbeat speed up beneath her hand. She bows her head slightly, a gesture of acceptance, of understanding, like there is a part of her that in this moment, is submitting to the attraction to this woman that she has always known deep down, like she is submitting to the knowledge that she might love her. 

 

Alex pulls away, and Astra leans forward as she does, and their foreheads come to rest together. Alex sighs deeply, the fingers resting on her head combing gently through her hair, a pressure against her scalp that makes Astra shiver. 'Do you understand now?' 

 

'Yes', she says, and she sounds breathless and awed, because maybe she is. She lifts her hand, gingerly touching the woman's cheek, and Alex tilts her head into her hand. There is a lightness in Astra's heart that she has never felt before, but she thinks she knows what it means. She exerts a little pressure with her fingers against Alex's jaw, and Alex tilts her head up to meet her halfway. 

 

The kiss is hesitant and gentle, a soft press of lips that is almost chaste, a tenderness that Astra has never known. Alex pulls away again, and let's go of her hand. She cups Astra's face in her hands, and says softly, 'when this is over, Astra, we are going to talk about this. So you have to promise me that you won’t… that we will get through this, okay?'

 

Astra understands what Alex is doing. Whatever this is, they do not want to complicate it with thoughts of what could be their last days, they do not want it to be mistaken for a desperate urge to find comfort and life before the end. Alex is worth more than that, Astra thinks. 

 

But it is something else. It is a promise. They will live. They will get through this. 

 

And Astra thinks of what could be, after this, and decides that it is a promise she desperately wants to keep. She nods, and Alex kisses her forehead again. Then she pulls her forward, and wraps her arms around her shoulders. 

 

Astra slides her arms around Alex's waist, and hugs her as tightly as she can without hurting her. There is a moment of discomfort, their torsos awkwardly twisted, but then Astra shifts into the bed, and Alex rises up, and settles on her lap, her legs curled around Astra’s waist, her chin resting atop her head. Astra presses her face against Alex’s neck, and she can feel the steady beat of her pulse beneath her skin. 

 

It is there, held in an embrace as soft and warm it is as if Alex has wings, and those wings are wrapped around them, that Astra realises that for the first time since her imprisonment in that cell, she slept without waking, not once. She slept without nightmares.

 

Astra closes her eyes, and focuses on Alex until it is as if she can feel every individual pressure against her, the shift of fabric and the warmth of skin, the hair that is tickling her forehead, the heartbeat and the steady breathing, until the world narrows to Alex, and Alex alone. 

 

Astra once told this woman that she trusted her. She did not tell Alex that she made her feel… secure. She hasn’t known the meaning of the word safe, not in a long time, but here, with Alex curved around her, she imagines that this is it. Alex’s embrace might be as close to safety as she will ever come. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow sorry this took so long to update, juggling all these fics at once is hard!
> 
> god supercat scenes are so hard to write wow i never know if i'm getting them right. fingers crossed right?
> 
> a quick note about timelines - so obviously in canon, the stuff with Leslie and Siobhan comes after the Black Mercy, but I enjoyed that stuff, and I felt like it worked well here, so yes, I juggled the timeline a bit. I hope its not too confusing for anyone. 
> 
> Can you tell how much I love Alex Danvers and how much I want her to be happy from this because I do. 
> 
> Also if you liked Astra's interaction with the kid, you might be happy to know that I'm writing an alternate meeting oneshot for General Danvers week about Astra integrating into society and adopting a kid. Because I have a lot of feelings about Astra and children. 
> 
> Anyway, hope you enjoyed! :)

**Author's Note:**

> guys.... i don't even know what this is. just. kara with wings. 
> 
> the idea just came to me at like 3am and i couldn't stop thinking about it and so here we are, i guess. its kinda become my way of dealing with the fact that the season is over and we don't have confirmation of Astra coming back and Trashwell Lord is apparently getting a redemption arc. also i wanted to explore Supercat more explicitly. 
> 
> will basically follow the main events of the season. probably one or two more chapters. let me know what you think, and as always, i'm open to suggestions!


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